Hyperscaler Spending Signals and a 2.9% Nasdaq Drop Cloud Anthropic's Nov. 16 IPO Target

Since Anthropic's S-1 landed on Monday, Oct. 26, the market it plans to list into has gotten worse. The three cloud giants that supply much of Anthropic's computing power all reported earnings this week, and none of the reports calmed anyone down.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.9% on Friday, Oct. 30, notching its first three-week losing streak since March. Among exchange-traded funds, the QQQ (Nasdaq 100) dropped 3.47% and the SPY (S&P 500) dropped 1.77%, according to market data as of Friday's close.

What the hyperscalers said

All three companies issued capital-spending figures or forecasts that came in below analysts' estimates.

• Microsoft lowered its capex forecast for the year to $170 billion from $175 billion.
• Alphabet held its guidance at up to $205 billion.
• Amazon reiterated its forecast of roughly $220 billion.

Only one of the three cut its number, and by a modest amount. The concern is that the figures landed under what Wall Street expected after years of escalating AI infrastructure spending.

Daniel Newman, CEO of Futurum Group, told CNBC on Friday that the results "raised eyebrows" and created "more doubt on capital structure." He added: "Everybody's still full steam ahead on AI, but all the things around it took an interesting turn this week."

Jonathan Krinsky, managing director at BTIG, wrote in a Thursday note that it has been "an ugly reporting season for tech thus far." He called the fallout "The Techsas Chainsaw Massacre."

Intel and the neoclouds

Intel issued a weak forecast, and its stock suffered its steepest drop since the 1970s. Nvidia and the broader semiconductor sector traded lower with it.

Before the earnings, investors were already worried about neoclouds such as CoreWeave and Nebius, which face rising borrowing costs and a dearth of lenders as they pursue aggressive AI buildouts.

Anthropic gets much of its capacity from Amazon, Google and SpaceX. It also relies on neoclouds for some compute as it races to expand. Its dependence on that supply chain is the exposure investors are now weighing.

What Anthropic has put on the table

The filing shows revenue of $16.3 billion for the first half of 2026, up 1,300% from a year earlier. The company reports more than 14,000 enterprise customers, about 250 of them contributing $10 million or more in annual revenue.

It also reports a net loss of more than $80 billion. Just shy of $9 billion of that came from spending on AI infrastructure and computing. More than $72 billion was attributable to changes in the fair value of convertible notes, derivative liabilities and SAFEs.

The filing does not include results for the quarter that ended Sept. 30. Investors are still waiting on those third-quarter financials.

David Hsu, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, put the skeptic's question this way: "It's a great technology, seems to do things that we never would have imagined, but how does that then translate into a viable business?"

The life sciences pitch

Anthropic is also selling investors on growth beyond coding. Business Insider's reading of the S-1 found repeated references to biotech. The filing says AI "could rapidly accelerate scientific innovation" and "bring cures for major diseases within reach."

The company writes that nine of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies and eight of the 10 largest healthcare companies in the Fortune 500 spent at least $100,000 with it over a recent yearlong period.

Its Claude Science product, in beta, came out in June. It spent $400 million in stock in April to buy the biotech startup Coefficient Bio. Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan joined its board that same month. Anthropic declined to comment to Business Insider.

OpenAI has a competing offering called Rosalind, and Google spinoff Isomorphic Labs is also working on AI-designed drugs.

What comes next

The listing would be on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, with trading possible as soon as Nov. 16. The IPO could reportedly value the company at up to $2 trillion. It was last valued at $965 billion after raising $65 billion in May.

Anthropic has not said how many shares it will sell or at what price. Both will be determined in the coming weeks. Investors will be watching whether the Q3 numbers arrive before pricing, and whether they change how buyers read a company that is still spending heavily while its partners' stocks fall.