CoreWeave Raises, Nvidia Bounces, Bonds Take the Day Off: Nasdaq Futures Up 1.9% With No Referee in the Room

1. Macro Pulse

Tuesday's close: hot CPI, modest damage. The S&P 500 fell 0.38% to 7,520.93, the Nasdaq Composite 0.74% to about 25,065.87, the Dow 0.30% to 52,231.89 and the Russell 2000 0.68% to 2,821.38. Financials (+0.52%) and energy (+0.44%) led, while technology (−1.15%) lagged as Nvidia fell 5.47%. Futures were indicated about 0.5% lower before the CPI release, so the cash session finished better than the pre-market tape implied. [CappNotes, 11/10; Eurasia Business News, 11/11; TechFlow, 11/11]

The front end carried the shock again. October CPI rose 0.4% month over month against 0.3% expected, and core rose 0.3% against 0.2%. The 2-year jumped about 17 basis points to roughly 4.73% (as high as 4.77% intraday), the 10-year about 10 to 11 basis points to 4.98% to 4.99% after briefly trading above 5%, and the 30-year about 9 basis points to 5.35%. The dollar index rose about 0.6% to roughly 102.2. With SIFMA's Veterans Day close, none of these levels can reset until Thursday morning. [Saxo, 11/11; Investrade, 11/11; CappNotes, 11/10; Investing.com, 11/10]

[ANALYSIS] A 17 basis point move in the 2-year against 9 in the 30-year is a bear flattening: the market is pricing a Fed that hikes into the data, not an inflation scare in the long end. That is why stocks fell less than 0.4%. Today's rally is happening with that bond move unconfirmed, which makes Thursday's reopen the real test of the morning's gains.

Overseas: Asia mostly higher, Europe firm. The Nikkei rose about 0.9% to 60,987.90 (one source shows +1.3%), Taiwan's Taiex gained about 3.1% to 44,042 on strong TSMC October sales, and the Kospi closed higher, with reported gains ranging from 0.7% to 2.6%. The Hang Seng fell about 0.8% to 24,354.19. In Europe the Stoxx 600 rose about 0.7% after the open, the DAX about 175 points to 26,525 and the FTSE 100 about 40 points to 10,792. [Business Upturn, 11/11; ARMENPRESS, 11/11; Investrade, 11/11; CNBC, 11/11]

Oil, gold and crypto. Brent settled Tuesday at $91.49 (−1.17%) after touching $89.16, and is up about 1.1% to $92.53 this morning, with WTI at $86.71, after the IRGC Navy said two tankers caught fire on mines along an "unauthorized route." Industry data showed US crude stocks up about 9M barrels in the week to November 6. Gold fell as much as 2.8% Tuesday to below $4,030 and trades a little above $4,050. Bitcoin slipped to about $73,800, near a three-month low. [HDFC Sky, 11/11; The Private Banker, 11/11; Saxo, 11/11; Business Standard, 11/11; The Weekend Spread, 11/10]

Washington and Beijing. Treasury Secretary Bessent said Tuesday evening the US and China should "de-risk," not decouple, and that the two sides reached consensus on more favorable tariff treatment for $30B of goods each way under a new bilateral Board of Trade, ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting in Shenzhen next week. [Tribune/ANI, 11/11; Epoch Times, 11/11; Benzinga, 11/11]

2. Economic Calendar

[ANALYSIS] The next FOMC decision is December 8–9. With no data and no Fed today, the only rate signal is from futures and fed funds pricing, which trade in thinner volume on a cash holiday. Treat any yield quote seen this morning as indicative, not as a market close. [MLQ, 11/09; The Tape Report, 11/11; Kiplinger, 11/09]

3. Earnings Spotlight

Also reporting. Rigetti Computing posted a Q3 loss of $0.06 per share on $1.41M of revenue, missing estimates (see Downside). Franco-Nevada reports after today's close. Cisco and Applied Materials report Thursday after the close, and Nvidia reports November 17. [Benzinga, 11/11; MLQ, 11/09; FX Leaders, 11/11]

4. Pre-Market Movers: Upside

5. Pre-Market Movers: Downside

6. Sector Rotation Radar

[ANALYSIS] The Dow trailing the Nasdaq by more than a point in futures is a reversal of last week's rotation, when the Dow led and chips sank. This is relief within the AI trade, not a broad risk appetite: rate-sensitive groups are not joining in.

7. Today's Session Playbook

1. No data, no Fed, no bonds. The session runs on earnings. Treat any quoted Treasury yield as indicative; the real reprice comes Thursday morning ahead of jobless claims and Governor Barr at 10:00 AM.
2. CoreWeave and the neocloud group. Watch whether CRWV holds above Tuesday's after-hours range on regular-session volume, and whether Nebius and the chip names keep pace or fade into the afternoon.
3. S&P 500 level: Tuesday's 7,520.93 close is the floor; Monday's 7,549.94 close is the first test. A close above Monday's level on a bond holiday would erase the CPI loss, but only provisionally.
4. Event risk: Cisco and Applied Materials Thursday after the close, October PPI Friday (+0.4% expected), Nvidia earnings November 17, and the Trump-Xi meeting in Shenzhen next week.
5. Under-the-radar: gold royalties into Franco-Nevada. FNV is up about 3.6% premarket into its report after the close, with gold back above $4,050 after Tuesday's 2.8% intraday drop. A clean print would test whether gold equities can hold with a December hike priced. [Benzinga, 11/11; Saxo, 11/11]

Yesterday our research said the oil relief had been priced by equities while the inflation had been priced by the Fed, and that the front end would carry the shock. Tuesday followed that script closely. The 2-year rose about 17 basis points and the 30-year about 9, while the S&P 500 lost only 0.38%. Our pre-market calls held up: we kept Nvidia at Wait for Clarity after Monday's 4.27% drop, and it fell another 5.47%. Futures were indicated about 0.5% lower for the S&P 500 and about 1.2% lower for the Nasdaq 100; the cash indexes closed down 0.38% and 0.74%, better than the pre-market tape.

Today adds a new condition: a session with no bond market. CoreWeave's results are strong on every line the equity market grades. Revenue grew 168%, operating income beat its own guide by about 60%, and backlog sits near $132.5B. The market is responding by lifting the whole AI compute group by similar amounts. Our research has argued for weeks that the long bond is the master variable for this trade, and the reason shows in CoreWeave's own numbers: fourth-quarter interest expense of $1.05–$1.15B against third-quarter operating income of $379M.

The hypothesis: equities are pricing revenue today, and on Thursday the bond market will price the debt. If the 10-year reopens near or above 5% and PPI confirms the CPI trend on Friday, expect the rebound to split, with lower-leverage names and chip suppliers holding gains and the most indebted neoclouds giving back more. If yields ease, the rally gains a second leg. Either way, a rally built on a day when the referee is absent should be treated as provisional until Thursday's open.