Markets Stay Lower on Valuation Questions: AI, etc.

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

It’s been a rougher trading week thus far, after notching all-time closing highs and leading to mixed results Monday. Today’s session was more assertive — to the down side. We’ve entered the rapid-pace phase of Q3 earnings season — after the Big Banks and most of the Mag 7, but before the Retailers — where results tend to come in more blended than they do for the earlier-reporting sectors.

None of the major indexes spent a split second trading in the green today. The Dow sold -251 points, -0.53% (and just over -1% in the past two trading days), while the S&P 500 sold -80 points, -1.17%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led the major indexes downward, -486 points or -2.04%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 shed -43 points, -1.78%. The past five trading sessions have begun to illustrate something of a slide.

AI valuations had gotten a bit koo-koo, as most investors acknowledge. Several months in a row of throwing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI build-out across the major tech players, along with private upstart OpenAI, have led market participants to eye further developments in this vein with a bit more wariness. Same goes for crypto, which saw Bitcoin dip below $100K for a short time today.
 

Q3 Earnings After the Close: AMD, AMGN, RIVN & More

One of those tech firms vying for AI business is Advanced Micro Devices AMD, which issued its Q3 results this afternoon with earnings of $1.20 per share — 3 cents above the Zacks consensus — on a strong revenue beat for the quarter: $9.25 billion versus $8.72 billion. Data Center business grew faster than expected, and revenue guidance was raised for Q4. That said, shares are trading down -2% after gaining over +100% year to date.

Biotech giant Amgen AMGN easily outperformed expectations in its Q3 report this afternoon: earnings of $5.64 per share zoomed beyond the $5.00 analysts were looking for. Revenues of $9.56 billion surged past the $8.94 billion in the Zacks consensus. Full-year guidance is up on both top and bottom lines, as product sales grew +12% year over year.

EV company Rivian RIVN posted a better-than-expected level of negative earnings in Q3, -$0.65 per share versus -$0.72 anticipated, and revenues of $1.56 billion outpaced the $1.46 billion in the Zacks consensus. Positive gross profit in three of the last four quarters on strength in sales for software and services have helped lead shares up +3.5% in late trading.

Super Micro Computer SMCI came out with mixed results in its reported quarter this afternoon, beating on the bottom line to 35 cents per share from 28 cents projected. Revenues of $5.0 billion, on the other hand, was slightly short of the $5.05 billion analysts had predicted. The company said it sees a “rapidly expanding order book,” but this isn’t enough to stop the shares selling off -9% in the after hours.

Even worse is Pinterest PINS, which logged its fourth-straight earnings miss, 38 cents per share versus 40 in the Zacks consensus, on just-met revenues of $1.05 billion in the quarter. Its now 600 million global active users is better than expected, but the company isn’t translating these into higher overall sales. Shares are down -18% after the close, swinging to a negative for the year to date so far.

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