Investors seek shelter from AI rout in asset-heavy stocks
Energy and utilities emerge as big winners from fears that artificial intelligence will upend software industry
Utilities, energy and materials stocks have emerged as winners from the AI anxiety gripping Wall Street, as investors fleeing sectors seen as vulnerable to disruption seek businesses with tangible assets.
The S&P 500 software sub-index this week tumbled to its lowest level since the immediate aftermath of President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement last April, losing $1.2tn in combined market capitalisation in less than a month.
The sector has borne the brunt of worries that new AI tools could upend entire industries. Those concerns have also rocked wealth managers and insurers.
But the S&P 500 utilities sub-index is up 9 per cent, while energy stocks have gained 23 per cent, as sectors with substantial physical assets find themselves suddenly back in vogue after years of underperformance relative to asset-light tech business.
“All these capital-light businesses that could scale historically are also the ones that could be easily disrupted,” said Guillaume Jaisson, European strategist at Goldman Sachs.
On the other hand, “capital-heavy businesses are difficult to replicate, it takes time”, Jaisson said.
“They are more insulated from the risk around AI,” he added, labelling the buoyant sectors as “Halo” stocks: heavy asset, low obsolescence.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq index rose 0.8 per cent in early trading on Tuesday as stocks steadied after Monday’s losses.
US software companies Intuit, AppLovin, Gartner and Workday have all dropped at least 40 per cent so far this year. Power company Generac Holdings and glassmaker Corning Inc are among the S&P’s biggest gainers this year so far. Oil groups Exxon and Chevron are up more than 20 per cent in 2026.
In Europe, the biggest stock market winners this year have been defence and energy sector supplier Kongsberg Gruppen and oil tanker shipping company Frontline Plc, both rising about 50 per cent since the start of the year.
Goldman launched a new European basket of “capital intensive” stocks on Tuesday, with its constituents up 12 per cent so far this year, compared with a 6 per cent gain for the broader Stoxx Europe 600. The bank’s “capital light” basket, on the other hand, is down 2 per cent this year so far.
Chipmakers, miners and heavy manufacturers have also led this year’s nearly 13 per cent gain by an MSCI benchmark for emerging markets.
Alex Temple, a credit portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, said the flash sell-offs were a symptom of investors crowding into sectors they did not fully understand, and then overreacting to predictions of AI disruption — such as the blog post from Citrini Research that sparked Monday’s software meltdown.
“It’s late-cycle behaviour, a lot of people will be invested in things that they don’t know a lot about,” Temple said, adding that the software selling had been driven by “Fobo”, or the “fear of becoming obsolete” due to AI advances.
Capital-light business models were particularly sought-after in the low interest rate environment that followed the global financial crisis, as investors focused on easily scalable business models at a time of easy borrowing conditions.
But a rise in interest rates since the pandemic has put pressure on these valuations at a time when investment has increased in capital-intensive sectors such as defence and infrastructure.
“The thing that has been working best for the last 15 years is now the most vulnerable,” said Gerry Fowler, head of derivatives strategy at UBS. “The avoidance of things at the moment centres around: is your business based on intangibles and intellectual property?”
Ex-Apple team launches Acme Weather, a new take on weather forecasting
The creators of Dark Sky, who sold their popular weather app to Apple in March 2020, are back with a new take on weather forecasting. The team recently announced the launch of their new app, Acme Weather, which they claim offers a better and more reliable forecast than the one they had at Dark Sky. The app will also offer a range of unique weather notifications, including fun ones like alerts about rainbows and beautiful sunsets.
Unlike typical weather apps, Acme Weather’s forecast is supplemented with a range of alternate predictions for better accuracy.
Image Credits:Acme Weather
Dark Sky co-founder Adam Grossman explains in an introductory blog post that the app’s homegrown forecasts will leverage different numerical weather prediction models, satellite data, ground station observations, and radar data, making its forecast fairly reliable.
However, the app will also feature additional forecast lines that show the other possible outcomes as gray lines on its graphs.
Image Credits:Acme Weather
“Forecasts are often wrong — it’s the weather, right? It’s one of the hardest things to predict,” Grossman told TechCrunch via a telephone interview. “And our biggest pet peeve with a lot of weather apps is you just get their best guess, and you don’t know how certain they are.”
Having an understanding of the alternatives helps people plan for big events, he noted.
“I find it most useful for winter storms, where, maybe the storm starts out in the morning, and you’re going to get snow, but maybe there’s also a possibility it holds out a little bit later — to the afternoon — in which case it’s rain,” Gross explained. “Being able to just see that right there on the timeline just gives you this intuitive sense of whether, do all the models agree, and you’re getting snow? Or do half of them say snow and half of them say rain?” he says.
This type of weather data could make for a valuable product, not just for consumers, but for other developers, too.
At Dark Sky, the team had offered its weather API to developers for a fee. After being acquired by Apple, the team worked on creating WeatherKit, the developer toolkit that provides access to Apple’s weather data on a subscription basis. Grossman said the team hasn’t yet decided if a developer API will be a part of Acme Weather’s offering.
Instead, Acme Weather is a $25-per-year consumer app, with a two-week free trial. This helps to cover the costs involved with pulling in the different weather models and resources, which can be expensive.
“Most of our time has been spent on building our own forecast — our own data provider, in a way. And this lets us do things like build multiple forecasts … [and] create any map we want, rather than having to rely on a third-party map provider,” Grossman noted.
At launch, the app offers a range of maps, like radar, lightning, rain and snow totals, as well as wind, temperature, humidity, cloud cover, and hurricane tracks.
Another feature, Community Reports, lets users share information about their current conditions to improve the app’s real-time weather reporting.
Image Credits:Acme Weather
While Dark Sky had become a favorite weather app because of its uncanny ability to predict when it would begin raining in your location, Acme Weather aims to improve on this and even have some fun.
The app includes built-in notifications for typical things, like rain, nearby lightning, community reports, government-issued severe weather alerts, and more. It’s also going to experiment with alerts like rainbow predictions or when you might see a beautiful sunset.
These will be available in a special “Acme Labs” section of the app, and Grossman said they’ll be conservative with their predictions, given the difficulty.
Image Credits:Acme Weather
Users will also be able to customize their notifications to focus on weather events they care about, like wind or UV index, or the possibility of rain over the next 24 hours.
Being able to try new ideas is part of what drew the team back to building an indie app, Grossman noted.
“I absolutely love Apple … but as a big company, it’s difficult to try weird, new, experimental ideals. If you have a billion users, mistakes are costly,” he tells TechCrunch. “There’s long software development cycles, there’s a lot of stakeholders, this idea of being able to try a bunch of things, I think, is interesting.”
Acme Weather is currently available on iOS. An Android version is planned.
The team is bootstrapped and includes co-founders Josh Reyes and Dan Abrutyn, also previously of Dark Sky. The small workforce includes both former Dark Sky team members and new hires.
Meta and AMD Agree to AI Chips Deal Worth More Than $100 Billion
The deal could result in Meta owning as much as 10% of AMD’s stock as the chip maker seeks to challenge Nvidia
Meta Platforms agreed to buy 6 gigawatts of AI computing power from Advanced Micro Devices in a deal worth over $100 billion.
The agreement includes warrants for Meta to buy up to 160 million AMD shares, or 10% of the company, for $0.01 apiece.
The deal involves AMD’s custom MI450 series chips, designed for Meta’s specific AI computing tasks, such as inference.
Meta META -2.81%decrease; red down pointing triangle Platforms has agreed to buy 6 gigawatts’ worth of artificial intelligence computing power from Advanced Micro Devices AMD -1.77%decrease; red down pointing triangle in a deal valued at more than $100 billion that could result in Meta owning as much as 10% of AMD’s stock.
The deal, announced by the companies Tuesday, represents a coup for AMD in its effort to challenge Nvidia NVDA 0.91%increase; green up pointing triangle in the market for selling graphics processing units, or GPUs—the microchips powering the AI boom.
Shares in AMD rose 14% in premarket trading.
Under Tuesday’s agreement, Meta will buy enough of AMD’s latest chips, known as the MI450 series, to power data centers using up to 6 gigawatts of computing power over the next five years. Each gigawatt of computing power means several tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AMD, the company said. Meta is expected to deploy the first gigawatt starting later this year.
As part of the arrangement, AMD has agreed to give Meta warrants to buy up to 160 million AMD shares—or roughly 10% of the company—for $0.01 apiece, as long as certain milestones are met.
The full stock award is conditional on a rise in AMD’s share price. Meta would only receive the final tranche of shares once AMD’s stock hits $600. It closed at $196.60 Monday.
With a limited number of large buyers of their chips, both Nvidia and AMD have been using novel financing mechanisms to lock key customers into long-term agreements to use their technology.
In October, AMD struck a deal with OpenAI that had terms almost identical to those of the Meta partnership. Both deals are examples of what critics have dubbed “circular financing,” an arrangement under which one company pays another company, which turns around and buys products or services from the first company.
As the AI boom has intensified and the sums of money going into these deals has skyrocketed, investors have been rewarding chip companies for every large purchase order they announce, even if they involve circular financing.
AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su said in a briefing with reporters ahead of Tuesday’s announcement that the deal is meant to counter competitors like Nvidia. As large customers such as Meta increase spending on AI infrastructure, AMD is seeking to lock them into using its chips for as long as possible.
“Meta has a lot of choices,” Su said. “I want to make sure that we are always a clear seat at the table when they think about what they need next.”
Last week, Meta said it would buy several million of Nvidia’s GPUs as well. That deal, which is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars, is meant to accelerate the Facebook and Instagram owner’s Meta Compute effort, under which the company is planning to increase capital spending on AI computing to develop large language models and further optimize its ad business.
Meta plans to deploy “tens of gigawatts” of data center computing power this decade and “hundreds of gigawatts or more over time,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a social-media post in January. The company spent $72 billion last year to build out AI data centers and plans to spend as much as $135 billion this year.
Meta attributed record revenue in the most recent quarter to AI and said it expected sales to rise even more sharply in the current quarter.
Tuesday’s deal is also one of the first examples of AMD selling what it describes as custom AI chips that are designed specifically for the computing tasks the customer wants to perform.
“This is an important step for Meta as we diversify our compute,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “I expect AMD to be an important partner for many years to come.”
In the past, AMD has usually sold “off the shelf” GPUs, or general-use AI chips that aren’t tailored for any specific workload. Its latest AI chip, known as MI450, is easier to customize because it uses a design architecture that integrates several tiny, interconnected bits of silicon known as chiplets, rather than relying on a single, monolithic silicon die as its main processor.
Meta wants to optimize its AMD chips for inference, or the process by which an AI model responds to user queries. The arrangement with Meta thrusts AMD into more direct competition with Broadcom, the world’s biggest designer of the custom chips.
Novo Nordisk to Cut U.S. List Prices for Ozempic, Wegovy by Up to 50%
The reductions will take effect next January
- Novo Nordisk plans to cut U.S. list prices for Wegovy and Ozempic by up to half, effective Jan. 1, 2027.
- The price reductions aim to lower patient out-of-pocket costs and will escalate a price war with rival Eli Lilly.
- Both Ozempic and Wegovy will list for $675 a month, coinciding with new Medicare prices of $274 for a 30-day supply.
Novo Nordisk NOVO.B -2.92%decrease; red down pointing triangle plans to slash U.S. list prices for its popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic by up to half starting next year.
Under the changes, both Ozempic and Wegovy will list for $675 a month, effective Jan. 1, 2027. That is half of the current price tag for anti-obesity therapy Wegovy and a 34% cut for diabetes treatment Ozempic. The price cuts also will apply to pill versions of both injections, including one sold as Rybelsus.
The reductions escalate a price war with archrival Eli Lilly LLY 4.86%increase; green up pointing triangle in one of the fastest-growing, most hotly contested categories in pharmaceuticals.
Millions of patients are taking the so-called GLP-1 drugs, but price tags have deterred other potential customers either because their health plans aren’t covering the medicines or the out-of-pocket costs set by their plans are too high.
Novo Nordisk is cutting its drugs’ list prices for the first time, executives said, especially to reduce high out-of-pocket costs for patients who are enrolled in high-deductible health plans or pay coinsurance that is a percentage of list price.
“Our hope is that reduced prices will lead to better access and affordability,” Jamey Millar, Novo Nordisk’s executive vice president of U.S. operations, said in an interview.
The global market for GLP-1 drugs used for weight loss and diabetes is roughly $72 billion and expected to rise to about $139 billion in 2030, TD Cowen estimated.
The Danish drugmaker took an early lead over Eli Lilly, but Lilly is now the leader. Novo Nordisk, which recently launched the first pill version of a GLP-1 approved for weight loss, has been seeking to regain its advantage.
Both companies have tried to make it easier for potential customers to get the drugs, offering their medicines directly for sale through websites.
They have also sought to compete on price. Novo Nordisk and Lilly have been cutting net prices for popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs by offering discounts to insurers and consumers, including through recent deals with the Trump administration.
For patients who are paying for prescriptions outside insurance, Novo Nordisk slashed cash prices to a range of $149 to $499 a month depending on the drug and dosage.
Meanwhile, Lilly sells its competing weight-loss drug Zepbound at cash prices ranging from $299 to $449, discounted off a list price of more than $1,000 a month.
Novo Nordisk’s list-price cuts won’t change its discounted prices, which are also available via a new government site, TrumpRx.
The January 2027 effective date of Novo Nordisk’s list-price cuts will coincide with the implementation of new, lower prices for the same drugs in the federal Medicare health-insurance program for the elderly.
The Medicare prices for Ozempic and Wegovy starting in January 2027 will be $274 for a 30-day supply. The Medicare prices resulted from negotiations last year between the Medicare agency and Novo Nordisk.
Russia targets Telegram as rift with founder Pavel Durov deepens
Kremlin steps up curbs against messaging app and promotes a state-backed rival
Russia has opened an investigation into Telegram founder Pavel Durov for “abetting terrorist activities”, in the latest sign that his uneasy relationship with the Kremlin has broken down.
Two Russian newspapers, including the state-run Rossiiskaya Gazeta and Kremlin-friendly tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, alleged on Tuesday that the messaging app had become a tool of western and Ukrainian intelligence services.
The articles, credited to materials from Russia’s FSB security service, accused Telegram of enabling attacks in Russia and said that Durov’s “actions . . . are under criminal investigation”. Russian authorities did not immediately comment on the reports.
Russia has restricted Telegram’s functions, accusing it of flouting the law and is seeking to divert users towards Max, a state-run rival messenger. The steps escalate pressure on a platform that remains deeply embedded in Russian public life.
Durov left Russia in 2014 after saying the Kremlin forced him to sell his stake in VK, the country’s largest social network, and has since cast Telegram as a privacy-first alternative to state control. He subsequently gained French and Emirati citizenship.
Although Moscow tried and failed to block the app in 2018, it later reached an accommodation.
Durov has also faced scrutiny in the west. French authorities placed him under formal investigation in 2024 over Telegram’s alleged failure to tackle criminal activity, accusations he denies.
The articles published on Tuesday accused Telegram of complying with orders from western governments while ignoring Russian requests, and said Ukraine had used the data for attacks on Russia.
They claimed Telegram had been used in 13 Ukrainian attempts to assassinate high-ranking Russian military officers, as well as a further 33,000 “bombings, arson attacks on recruitment centres, and murders” since the war began.
“Telegram has become the main instrument of Nato countries’ secret services and the ‘Kyiv regime.’ The platform has shied from nothing — intercepting location data, selling secret information and intimidating soldiers and their families,” Rossiiskaya Gazeta wrote.
“Digital platforms have ceased to be a neutral space. In the conditions of total hybrid warfare they are becoming strategic weapons,” it added.
Telegram and Durov did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Moscow’s moves against Telegram and its chief executive could usher in significant changes in Russia, where the Dubai-based app has more than 105mn monthly users.
Even after Russia banned most western social media platforms during the war in Ukraine, ministries publish official statements on Telegram, soldiers use it to co-ordinate actions on the front lines and President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson speaks to the media via the app.
Russia began throttling Telegram’s traffic earlier this month over what it said was its refusal to store user data in the country and censor content on demand.
Internet censors also blocked WhatsApp and degraded access to YouTube. Russia began limiting voice and video calls on Telegram and WhatsApp last year.
Following the latest moves, Durov accused Russia of “restricting access to Telegram to force its citizens onto a state-controlled app built for surveillance and political censorship”.
The attacks on Telegram have already attracted criticism among the Kremlin’s own supporters, including governors of regions on the Ukrainian border who use it to warn of incoming drone and missile attacks.
FSB director Alexander Bortnikov said last week that Russia had previously negotiated with Durov over Telegram and abandoned those efforts after it “did not lead to anything good”.
Bortnikov did not say what the talks were about or when they were, but accused Durov of “serving his own selfish interests” and enabling “a large number of violations of the law”.
Europe re-arms as US slows defence spending
Washington remains world’s largest military power but European capitals spend more than before, says IISS
A two-speed arms race is taking shape: the US is slowing its defence spending while Europe accelerates, according to a report.
Data published on Tuesday by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies in its annual Military Balance 2026 shows spending reached an all-time high of $2.63tn last year. But the headline figure masks a widening divergence: Washington is easing back while European capitals press ahead.
Global defence spending rose just 2.5 per cent in real terms in 2025, a sharp slowdown from the near 10 per cent annual growth recorded in the years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The US remains by far the world’s largest military spender, accounting for 36 per cent of global defence outlays in 2025. Yet a 7.1 per cent cut in US spending in real terms dragged down overall growth.
Europe, by contrast, continued its defence boom and now accounts for more than 21 per cent of global spending, up from 17 per cent in 2022. Germany is responsible for “much of this uplift”, according to the IISS.
Russia’s full-scale invasion, China’s military modernisation and mounting tensions in the Middle East have turned defence from a post-cold war choice back into a necessity.
Under pressure from US President Donald Trump, most Nato members pledged in June 2025 to raise defence and defence-related spending to 5 per cent of GDP by 2035, with at least 3.5 per cent devoted to core military expenditure — up from the previous 2 per cent benchmark.
Meanwhile, under revised EU fiscal rules, member states may exceed deficit limits if the additional borrowing is used to finance defence.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth told Nato allies last year that while America remained committed to Nato, Europe must “take ownership of conventional security on the continent”. Washington has since begun to scale back certain defence commitments, demanding greater burden-sharing from allies.
Russia’s own wartime surge has also cooled. Military expenditure rose 3 per cent in real terms in 2025, after a near 57 per cent jump the previous year. Even so, defence spending still absorbs more than 7.3 per cent of GDP — the third-highest share in the world, after Ukraine (21.2 per cent) and Algeria (8.8 per cent).
Trump “has doubled down on the defence of the homeland and placed an emphasis on the western hemisphere”, said IISS. “His administration has begun to roll back on the United States’ long-standing defence commitments and demanded greater burden-sharing among its allies — both in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.”
Home Depot beats by $0.19, reports revs in-line; guides FY27 EPS in-line, revs in-line; raises dividend by 1.3%
- Reports Q4 (Jan) earnings of $2.72 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.19 better than the FactSet Consensus of $2.53; revenues fell 3.8% year/year to $38.2 bln vs the $38.09 bln FactSet Consensus.
- The 14th week in fiscal 2024 added approximately $0.30 to adjusted diluted earnings per share to the fourth quarter and the year.
- Comparable sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 increased 0.4%, and comparable sales in the U.S. increased 0.3%.
- Co issues in-line guidance for FY27, sees adjusted EPS growth ~flat to 4%, which translates to ~$14.69-15.28, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $15.09 FactSet Consensus; sees FY27 revs growth of ~2.5% to 4.5%, which translates to ~$168.8-172.1 bln vs. $171.21 bln FactSet Consensus.
- Comparable sales growth of approximately flat to 2.0%
- Approximately 15 new stores
- Gross margin of approximately 33.1%
- Operating margin of approximately 12.4% to 12.6%
- Adjusted operating margin of approximately 12.8% to 13.0%.
- The Company today announced that its board of directors approved a 1.3% increase in its quarterly dividend to $2.33 per share, which equates to an annual dividend of $9.32 per share. The dividend is payable on March 26, 2026, to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 12, 2026. This is the 156th consecutive quarter the Company has paid a cash dividend.
Amer Sports beats by $0.03, beats on revs; guides Q1 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus; guides FY26 EPS below consensus, revs above consensus
- Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.31 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.03 better than the FactSet Consensus of $0.28; revenues rose 28.5% year/year to $2.1 bln vs the $1.99 bln FactSet Consensus.
- Co issues mixed guidance for Q1, sees EPS of $0.28 to $0.30, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $0.33 FactSet Consensus; sees Q1 revs of +22 to +24% yr/yr or $1.796 bln to $1.826 bln vs. $1.74 bln FactSet Consensus.
- Co issues mixed guidance for FY26, sees EPS of $1.10 to $1.15, excluding non-recurring items, vs. $1.16 FactSet Consensus; sees FY26 revs of +16 to +18% yr/yr or $7.617 bln to $7.748 bln vs. $7.49 bln FactSet Consensus.
- Carrie Ask to become Wilson President & CEO.
1. La numéro deux de La Banque Postale rejoint Revolut
Perrine Kaltwasser, membre du directoire et directrice des risques, de la conformité et du secrétariat général de La Banque postale, a démissionné. Son départ s’inscrit dans une longue série d’évictions sous la direction de Stéphane Dedeyan. Elle rejoint Revolut comme responsable des risques pour l’expansion en Europe de l’Ouest. Ancienne cadre de la BCE et de l’ACPR, son départ est perçu comme un effet boomerang pour Dedeyan et sa stratégie de « postalisation ».
2. Rachida Dati s’affiche avec des patrons de la musique pour sa campagne parisienne
La ministre de la Culture a obtenu le soutien d’Angelo Gopee (Live Nation France), Alexandre Kirchhoff (Universal Music/Capitol) et Saïd Boussif (Indifference Prod) pour la mairie de Paris en 2026. Avant de quitter la Rue de Valois, elle a lancé une mission sur le partage de la valeur des captations de spectacles vivants et répondu favorablement à une demande de Fimalac Entertainment.
3. White & Case conseillera la DGEC
La Direction générale de l’énergie et du climat a confié à White & Case un contrat d’assistance juridique transversale de 4,8 millions d’euros pour l’accompagner sur la régulation des installations de production, transport, distribution et stockage d’énergie.
4. Le plan com’ en solo d’Hélène Mercier-Arnault
La femme de Bernard Arnault a lancé une offensive médiatique (TF1, RTL, Vogue Business, Gala, Le Figaro) autour de son prochain album, orchestrée par Louis Jublin (ex-conseiller de Gabriel Attal, via sa société Minerva). LVMH n’était pas au courant. Ses interventions ont attiré l’attention sur la succession au sein de la famille Arnault en pleine crise.
5. Télérama maintient des résultats stables malgré la chute publicitaire
L’hebdomadaire culturel du Groupe Le Monde affiche un résultat d’exploitation positif de 7 M€ en 2025 pour un CA de 68 M€. Les revenus publicitaires ont chuté à 5,7 M€ (contre 11,6 M€ en 2017). Les abonnements représentent 74 % du CA. Le numérique atteint 6,6 % du CA. La hausse de 7 % du tarif postal par La Poste représente un risque financier estimé à 800 000 €.
6. L’INPI refuse la marque « C’est Nicolas qui paie » à Frontières
L’Institut national de la propriété intellectuelle a refusé d’enregistrer cette marque déposée par Artefakt (société mère de Frontières, fondée par Erik Tegnér), estimant qu’elle n’est pas distinctive et constitue une expression du débat public.