AI Euphoria Meets Earnings Gravity: Will the AI Bubble Pop or Deflate Gracefully?
A week that began with a 26% collapse in C3.ai and a 20% drop in CoreWeave ended with the Nasdaq 100 flirting with record highs, underscoring the tension that now defines artificial intelligence investing. As of Friday’s close, the S&P 500 (SPY) finished at $645.31 and the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) at $571.97, while Nvidia (NVDA) advanced to $177.99, per Yahoo Finance. The volatility backdrop eased, with the VIX at 14.22, also according to Yahoo Finance. The macro backdrop remains supportive: the 10-year Treasury yield sits at 4.26% and the 2-year at 3.68%, a positive 58-basis-point 10y–2y spread that marks a decisive exit from inversion, per U.S. Treasury data. The effective fed funds rate is 4.33% and unemployment is 4.2% (July), while real GDP is running near $30.33 trillion SAAR in Q2, according to FRED. That policy and liquidity cushion, however, is being tested by uneven AI monetization and timing risks. C3.ai’s CEO called preliminary sales “completely unacceptable,” while CoreWeave’s wider-than-expected loss hit sentiment ahead of its lock-up expiration even as it raised 2025 revenue guidance and highlighted a $30.1 billion backlog, CNBC reported. At the same time, cash-rich incumbents continue to execute: Cisco posted a narrow beat with strong AI infrastructure orders, and Foxconn reported a 27% profit jump as AI servers climbed to 41% of revenue, per CNBC. The result is a market where index-level optimism coexists with stock-specific air pockets—making backlog conversion, margins, and balance sheet strength the critical differentiators.