Wall Street's artificial intelligence trade found a second gear on Tuesday, but almost nothing else did. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 308.43 points, or 1.18%, to close at 26,477.81, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a gain of just 16.82 points — 0.03% — to finish at 52,378.40. The S&P 500 split the difference, adding 45.87 points, or 0.60%, to 7,722.64.
That 1.15-percentage-point gap between the Nasdaq and the Dow is the story of the session. Semiconductor stocks rose for a second consecutive day, and Oracle said it had struck partnerships with Google, Cerebras and SambaNova to diversify its AI infrastructure beyond Nvidia's processors. Outside of technology, the tape was listless: Boeing fell about 1.8% after a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, and Coca-Cola slipped even after raising its earnings outlook on softening North American demand.
The Dow's flat finish understates how much churning it took to get there. The index was down roughly 74 points early in the session, was up 78.80 points by 11:41 a.m. Eastern, and gave most of that back into the close.
Anthropic's Prospectus Lands
The catalyst was Anthropic's Form S-1, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The company has applied to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "ANT."
The growth figures in the filing are difficult to find a precedent for. Anthropic reported revenue of $41 million in 2023, $386 million in 2024 and $4.6 billion in 2025. For the six months ended June 30, 2026, revenue reached $16.3 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the same period a year earlier. Second-quarter revenue alone was $11.6 billion, against $787 million a year prior, and the company posted an operating profit of $1.0 billion on an 8% operating margin for the quarter.
The loss column is where the filing gets complicated. Anthropic disclosed a net loss of $80.7 billion for the first half of 2026 — but $72.4 billion of that was a non-cash charge from the change in fair value of its convertible notes, derivative liabilities and SAFEs, which rises as the company's own valuation rises. Its operating loss for the half was a comparatively modest $693 million.
One figure investors have been circulating is not actually in the document. Several outlets reported Anthropic's long-term compute obligations at $518 billion, others at $657 billion with roughly $498 billion non-cancelable. In the S-1 as filed, those amounts are blank placeholders: the prospectus commits only to "an aggregate committed spend of more than $ ___," with the dollar values, along with the IPO price range, left to be filled in later. Readers should treat the specific totals in circulation as estimates rather than disclosures.
The Fed Takes Center Stage Wednesday
The rally runs into a harder test Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve concludes its two-day meeting and Alphabet and Microsoft both report third-quarter results.
The federal funds target range stands at 3.75% to 4.00% after last month's increase, and policymakers are widely expected to hold steady this week. In its October 27 market report, USAGOLD cited CME FedWatch pricing at roughly an 11% chance of a hike at this meeting but about 82% for December — leaving limited room for a hawkish surprise. Reuters reported that markets are pricing at least two more increases by mid-2027 as inflation stays elevated amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict.
Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management, framed the setup around the AI reporting calendar. "If we see positive surprises and (earnings) raises on any of these AI stocks that are reporting from now until the Anthropic IPO, I think it's a very positive environment," he said.
Elsewhere, the 10-year Treasury yield held just under 5%, at about 4.99%. Gold rose $9.47 to $4,026.55 an ounce while silver eased 15 cents to $53.82, pushing the gold-silver ratio to 74.82. United Parcel Service gained 2% after lifting full-year guidance, with its chief executive saying "US consumers remain resilient and the outlook for holiday demand is strong." SoFi Technologies was up about 15% at midday on a consumer-lending beat.
Even after Tuesday's advance, the S&P 500 remains roughly 1.2% below the record close of 7,818.98 it set on October 6.
Sources: Anthropic, PBC Form S-1 filed with the SEC (EDGAR), Yahoo Finance market coverage, Reuters, The Motley Fool, USAGOLD Daily Precious Metals Market Report (October 27, 2026), CME FedWatch as cited by USAGOLD.