ThinkEquity Morning Briefing | 8-13-2026| AI Trade Enters a More Selective Era
Morning Brief

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(Bloomberg) -- The AI trade is alive and kicking. It’s just getting a lot harder to trade, as the market starts to draw much sharper lines across the complex.

S&P 500 futures were 0.1% higher as of 5:25a.m. in New York, with Nasdaq 100 contracts steady. A relatively benign CPI print has kept the path clear for equities, while a powerful rally in Asian chip stocks — South Korea’s Kospi has now surged roughly 22% from its July low — has handed US tech a strong lead-in.

The question for the session is how broadly that strength holds up once US trading gets underway.

Cisco is sliding pre-market after its first full-year AI revenue forecast underwhelmed investors given the scale of its order book, while Cerebras is getting punished despite raising its annual sales outlook, as traders questioned how quickly the AI infrastructure boom will translate into revenue.

Investors are increasingly discerning between companies already turning the data-center boom into revenue and those where they are still being asked to look further out.

The reaction to Cisco and Cerebras suggests the next batch of AI earnings may face a higher bar. Headline orders and exposure to the capex boom may no longer be enough on their own, with investors likely to focus more closely on how quickly demand converts into revenue, what it does to margins and whether earnings can keep pace.

Spending remains huge and demand remains real. But if that dispersion keeps widening, the next leg of the AI trade will be driven by companies that can actually explicitly deliver on it.

In politics, Iran has reorganized its military to be more aggressive abroad as talks on ending the war with the US remain mired in stalemate, a sign that Tehran is preparing for a protracted era of regional conflict. 

In deals, Anthropic is in talks to buy the artificial intelligence startup Decart AI for about $6 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Kenneth Dart’s Candle Lake launched a mandatory cash takeover offer for Evolution valuing the Swedish betting company at about 132 billion kronor ($13.8 billion). 

In other assets, Japan’s government is supportive of a near-term rate hike by the Bank of Japan, with the next move likely either in September or October, according to people familiar with the matter.

Strategy: Citigroup strategists raised their full-year earnings forecast for S&P 500 firms, and said revenue trends at the AI capex spenders “should help provide a floor for the AI-influenced portion of the index.” The team led by Scott Chronert boosts EPS target by ~4% to $365.

Earnings: JD.com and Tapestry are among companies due to report numbers before the market opens. Short interest in Chinese internet stocks dropped in recent weeks ahead of earnings season. JD.com’s retail operating income likely fell by less than the 6.7% consensus decline in 2Q, even as softer home-appliance demand weighed on sales amid subsidy fatigue, note BI. Earnings from Applied Materials follow later in the day.

Sandisk and IDEXX Labs host investor days. 

Economy: Initial jobless claims through August 8 and PPI for July due at 8:30 a.m. ET. Fed’s Hammack and Barkin are scheduled to speak. 

Equity Insights:

• Strong second-quarter earnings were supercharged by “paper gains” in AI investments, posing risk that losses in those same investments may weigh on quarters ahead, especially for mega-cap tech stocks, according to Ned Davis Research.
• A divergence in the volatility skew between credit and stocks has opened up since the start of August, coinciding with aggressive call buying in equities, Barclays strategists including Stefano Pascale flag.
• Momentum stocks, which had a “nice bounce back” on Wednesday, could continue to climb during the next few days, according to BTIG Chief Market Technician Jonathan Krinsky.

US Premarket Movers of Note:

• CBRS US (-18%): Cerebras Falls as Growth Forecast Underwhelms: Street Wrap
• STUB US (-17%): Stubhub Drops as Earnings, Forecast Underwhelm: Street Wrap
• CSCO US (-6.1%): Cisco’s AI Outlook Disappoints Investors Seeking Bigger Payoff
• BIRK US (+3.7%): Birkenstock Nudges Forecast Higher Thanks to Solid Sandal Demand
• DELL US (+3.8%), HPQ (+1.3%): Lenovo’s AI-Driven Revenue Boost Sends Stock to New Record
• FIVE US (+2.7%): Five Below Raised to Buy at Jefferies; PT $350
• NFLX US (+2.2%): Pershing Square Adds Visa, Netflix Among New Investments
• CRWV US (-2.5%): CoreWeave Warns of Difficulty If It Must Shift From Nvidia Chips
• COHR US (-4.6%): Coherent Falls on Industrial Biz, High Expectations: Street Wrap

M&A:

• Ancora Holdings Group is pushing to acquire H.B. Fuller Co.’s building adhesives unit for as much as $1.2 billion after trying to block the chemical company’s June takeover of a UK medical products firm.
• Samsonite Group SA agreed to buy an 85% stake in US lifestyle brand Béis for $178.5 million in cash, a deal the luggage giant said would expand its reach among younger, mostly female consumers.

ECM:

• Robinhood Ventures Fund II priced IPO of 8m shares at an initial public offering price of $25/shr.
• AbCellera Biologics priced its offering of 17.4m shares at $9.75 each.
• BirchBioMed Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on fibrosis and autoimmune treatments, files an S-1 registration statement for a direct listing of up to 29.9m shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker “BRBM.”

Macro: 

• Three workhorses of global goods trade indicated demand remains solid as the artificial intelligence boom and energy transition help the world economy absorb shocks stemming from extreme weather, wars and tariffs.
• Private equity firms have raised more than $1.2 billion so far this week from selling shares of their portfolio companies years after taking them public, allowing them to return some cash to investors.
• JPMorgan Asset Management prefers bond exposure outside the US as uncertainty over Federal Reserve policy and economic data clouds the outlook for Treasuries.

Europe/Asia:

Europe Trading: European stocks advanced on Thursday after a slate of upbeat corporate earnings, while easing wagers on a Fed interest-rate hike lifted global investor sentiment. A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S rallied as it raised its full-year outlook for a second time in seven weeks, benefiting from higher freight rates. Dutch payments firm Adyen NV jumped 14% as it raised its net revenue growth outlook for the year.

Asia Trading: Asian stocks advanced, led by chipmakers, after US inflation came in line with expectations and eased Fed rate hike concerns. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed 0.8%, led by South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. The Kospi Index rose as much as 4.8%, pushing the gauge into a technical bull market. 

Other Company News:

• Deutsche Bank’s DWS Backs Insurer, Eyes Private Markets Mandate
• Ford Will Stop Importing the One Model It Ships From China to US
• SpaceX Passes First Lockup Expiry Test With $500 Billion Rally
• NEPI Rockcastle Buys MegaPark Barakaldo in Spain for €254m
• KKR Offered to Buy 8.43% Stake in First Gen: First Philippine
• Robinhood Ventures Fund II Pricing of IPO
• Duolingo Acquires London Studio Animade; No Deal Terms

ECO CALENDAR (All times ET):

• 8:30 am: United States Aug 8 Initial Jobless Claims, est. 202k, prior 199k
• 8:30 am: United States Aug 1 Continuing Claims, est. 1794k, prior 1801k
• 8:30 am: United States Jul PPI Final Demand MoM, est. 0.2%, prior -0.3%
• 8:30 am: United States Jul PPI Ex Food and Energy MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.2%
• 8:30 am: United States Jul PPI Final Demand YoY, est. 4.9%, prior 5.5%
• 8:30 am: United States Jul PPI Ex Food and Energy YoY, est. 4.1%, prior 4.7%

CENTRAL BANKS (All times ET):

• 8:15 am: United States Fed’s Hammack Speaks in Moderated Discussion
• 8:40 am: United States Barkin Speaks on Economic Outlook

Main Rating Changes:

Upgrades:

• ANNX US: Annexon Raised to Market Perform at Citizens
• FIVE US: Five Below Raised to Buy at Jefferies; PT $350
• SLGN US: Silgan Raised to Outperform at RBC; PT $58
• SM US: SM Energy Raised to Overweight at Wells Fargo; PT $47

Downgrades:

• MMM US: 3M Cut to Buy as CFRA Sees Less Upside After Recent Strength
• BORR US: Borr Drilling Cut to Hold at Arctic Securities; PT $3.80
• LQDA US: Liquidia Cut to Market Perform at LifeSci Capital; PT $90
• OI US: O-I Glass Cut to Sector Perform at RBC; PT $8
• STUB US: Stubhub Cut to Underperform at BofA; PT $7.50

Initiations:

• ALGM US: Allegro Rated New Buy at Benchmark on Automotive Growth
• MTSI US: Macom Reinstated Buy at Benchmark
• MTN US: Vail Resorts Reinstated Sell at Goldman; PT $132