HSBC compares disclosures from the two companies: Z.AI’s return on compute improved faster quarter over quarter, but its revenue scale, margins and cash flow still lag Anthropic’s; the way cloud-platform revenue is recognized also affects direct comparisons.
Third-quarter revenue rose 43% year on year, but slower deliveries left growth slightly below expectations. HSBC Qianhai is optimistic about a ramp-up in SuperPOD switches from 2027, while cutting its earnings forecasts and target price.
HSBC expects Intel’s third-quarter revenue to reach 17 billion dollars, above the top end of company guidance. Shifting capacity toward servers is expected to support data center growth, but also depress client revenue. Advanced packaging customer discussions are increasing, while projects face delays and yield challenges.
JPMorgan says Baosteel and Steel Authority of India face cost pressures, while Nucor and Gerdau benefit from prices and sales volumes. Both miners maintained their full-year guidance, but each had shortcomings in its quarterly performance.
Industrial automation order growth has slowed markedly since August; new energy vehicle revenue recovered, but its gross margin fell. JPMorgan maintains a Neutral rating and is watching growth quality.
The factory automation business posted a positive gross margin in the third quarter, and a robotics project entered mass production. Group gross margin improved quarter by quarter but remained below the prior-year level for the first nine months.
JPMorgan has set an end-2027 price target of 9.70 yuan for ICBC A-shares. The bank expects net interest income to recover, but higher loan loss provisions will keep profit growth below revenue growth.
Research & Development Solutions drove IQVIA’s third-quarter earnings beat, while order momentum also supported improving demand. At the same time, the backlog cleanup was larger than expected, and full-year organic growth guidance was trimmed slightly.
Gareth Berry, Macquarie’s foreign exchange and rates strategist, says the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold rates at 3.75% to 4%, with only two officials advocating a hike rather than the three expected by the market, together with plans to reduce the number of rate-setting meetings starting in 2027, makes further hikes over the next six months less likely than the market had previously assumed.
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the company posted record third-quarter revenue of 1.42 billion dollars, but crypto revenue plunged 55% year over year to 120 million dollars. The real new engine is prediction markets, where revenue rose more than sixfold to 173 million dollars, surpassing crypto, as the company builds toward a financial super app.
Michael Gapen, Morgan Stanley’s chief US economist, said what surprised him most was that the chair offered no convincing explanation for why the committee held steady this month. The real policy-based answer is that inflation is driven largely by supply-side forces, raising rates cannot produce more oil, and monetary policy can only prevent energy prices from passing through to other goods.
Gerard DiPippo, director of global macro at Eurasia Group, says China does not publish its industrial policy spending, leaving outsiders to estimate direct subsidies and tax incentives. “Unlimited resources” are therefore more a matter of imagination. Meanwhile, China’s economy is slowing significantly, and over the past five years self-reliance has become central to reducing external dependence.
Serval co-founder and CEO Jake Stauch says ServiceNow is the large incumbent in this field, but every new idea has to be implemented and often lags requirements by 6 to 12 months. Serval’s approach lets agents act under a strict, deterministic approval process and audit trail, putting the ability to build directly in the hands of IT departments.
Alexander Altmann, Barclays’ global head of equity tactical strategy, says that investors across the United States, Europe and Asia still respond overwhelmingly positively when asked about the AI story. He says the market is currently in the “denial phase,” and the first thing that could shake this conviction is a hyperscaler tightening capital spending.
London School of Economics professor Keyu Jin says that after the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, Trumpism and the energy crisis, people have been talking about deglobalisation, Cold War 2.0 and decoupling, but that is not what happened at all; US-China trade peaked in 2022, revealing a clear gap between political narratives and trade reality.
Tencent Cloud CEO Dowson Tong says capital expenditure is substantial for most players, but demand is equally strong. Tencent once had a “leaky boat” because of insufficient computing capacity and team integration challenges; its high-end models have now made marked progress, and the enormous value created by AI will eventually make the investment economics work.
BofA expects China Merchants Securities' third-quarter net profit to rise sharply year on year, but the incremental contribution from valuation gains on ChangXin Memory Technologies will weaken. Together with a cut to turnover forecasts, profit could fall in 2027.
The company expects its North American robotics customer’s weekly production rate to rise to 2500–3000 units by December, but weak automotive demand and rising raw material prices are squeezing gross margins. Citi has lowered its 2026–2028 earnings forecasts and maintained its Buy rating.
Third-quarter operating profit in 2026 exceeded Nomura’s forecast, but net profit fell quarter on quarter because of investment and foreign exchange losses. Nomura expects memory volumes and prices to continue rising and believes share repurchases and cancellations will further increase earnings per share.
Seagate’s average nearline hard drive selling price rose 16% quarter over quarter in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, driving better-than-expected profits. But some of the increase reflected cost pass-through, and stocking up for Mozaic 4 also slowed shipment growth. Bernstein is optimistic about future pricing but has cut its price target from $1350 to $1100 after reducing its valuation multiple.
