Anthropic's public IPO filing brought buyers back into AI stocks on Monday, and chipmakers led the move. Investors are betting the offering can restore some momentum to a tech sector that has been struggling. The company behind Claude plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol ANT. Its filing showed $16.29 billion in revenue for the six months ended June, up 1,304% from $1.16 billion a year earlier.
The Federal Reserve is the other event traders are watching. Its decision comes Wednesday, and fed funds futures put the odds of a hold at about 90%, which would leave the target range at 3.75% to 4%.
Meta Platforms added to the day's deal flow about two hours before Anthropic filed. It said it wants to raise as much as $95 billion by selling common and preferred stock, one of the largest equity offerings on record. According to a company statement, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom have indicated interest in buying up to $5 billion of the common shares between them. Alphabet and Intel also held rare stock sales this year to fund AI work, which needs enormous amounts of infrastructure and computing power. Both were oversubscribed, and that helped sentiment too.
Falling oil helped as well. Brent futures slipped 0.8% to settle at $115.81 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate dropped 1.5% to $101.76. Brent settled Friday at its highest level since April on reports that the U.S. and Israel could be planning strikes on Iran after the midterm elections
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) gained 0.7% and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose about 0.8%, with both coming off a second straight losing week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added nearly 0.3%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 closed at 2,786.65, up 0.4%. Falling oil helped as well.
Semiconductors did the heavy lifting. A closely watched industry gauge climbed 2.8%, and the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) gained nearly 3%. Micron rose 3% after Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya said he's "incrementally more positive" on the memory industry. He'd just met with Micron's management team, and the meetings confirmed that memory supply should be tighter in 2027 and 2028.
Other chip names followed. Broadcom (AVGO) rose 2.3%, AMD jumped 2.8% and Nvidia (NVDA) climbed 2.4% after Anthropic submitted its S-1 prospectus to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The filing came with a long list of risk factors.
Neocloud stocks bounced even though Elon Musk said more than 200 companies in the space face "guppy-level death." A neocloud is a specialized cloud computing company that builds and rents out AI-dedicated infrastructure. CoreWeave gained almost 2%, Nebius Group also rose nearly 2% (it's still more than 45% below its high), and Iren advanced 2.1%.
Stocks making the biggest moves:
Lockheed Martin gained 5%. Morgan Stanley upgraded the prime defense contractor to overweight from equal weight and raised its 12-month price target to $835 from $690, which implies 38% upside from Friday's close. The bank cited a deal to keep producing F-35 fighter jets for the Defense Department.
CACI International surged 5% after Jefferies upgraded it to buy from hold. The new $725 price target implies nearly 17% upside from Friday's close.
Tesla climbed more than 5% after Barclays upgraded it to overweight. Analysts at the bank pointed to a possible merger and acquisition opportunity with SpaceX, growth in the Robotaxi business and strength in the core operation.
Range Resources rose 17% after EQT Corp announced an all-stock deal to acquire the natural gas producer. The deal creates a combined company with a pro forma enterprise value above $50 billion and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. EQT shares fell 4%.
Instacart rose 7% after The Wall Street Journal reported that rival DoorDash is in talks to acquire it. People familiar with the matter told the Journal a deal could be completed this week. DoorDash slid 5%. The Information had reported Friday that Instacart held early-stage talks with DoorDash and Uber about a sale.
JetBlue Airways tumbled nearly 9% after the Journal reported that its senior creditors are working with a restructuring advisor. The New York-based airline's bonds sank late last week, and the stock is down roughly 50% year to date.
Communication services stocks slid. The Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLC) fell to its lowest level since June 2025. AppLovin and T-Mobile US hit new 52-week lows, Verizon dropped nearly 1,6% after earnings, and Reddit and Meta Platforms fell nearly 4% and 1.9%.
Sector Analysis:
Best-Performing Sectors
Tech did the heavy lifting. The sector gained 1.50%, and with a 37% weight in the index, that was enough to push the S&P 500 up 0.70%. The spark was Anthropic's S-1 filing for a Nasdaq listing, and its revenue growth numbers took some of the air out of the fear that the AI boom was running dry. Chips ran hardest. Some of that was plain dip-buying after a selloff that had erased roughly $2 trillion in chip market value over eight sessions.
Industrials rose 1.40%, and there's no obvious company story behind it. The group seemed to ride the mood as crude cooled and geopolitical tension eased.
Consumer Discretionary's 1.11% gain was mostly Tesla. The stock jumped 5.2% after Barclays upgraded it and lifted its target to $450 from $370, pointing to robotaxis, a recovering car business and possible ties to SpaceX.
Worst-Performing Sectors
Communication Services slid 1.42%, and Meta was the main reason. It fell about 1.9% after filing to raise to $95 billion for AI infrastructure, on top of Thursday's roughly 7% drop over its spending outlook and a plan for non-voting shares. The catch is that the AI spending that fills chipmakers' order books lands on the balance sheets of the platforms paying for it. That's a funding worry rather than a demand worry, and it sat in a handful of mega-caps rather than across the whole sector.
Utilities and Consumer Staples barely budged, down 0.02% and 0.13%. No single driver stands out. The 10-year Treasury yield was sitting around 5%, which makes bond proxies a tough sell, and the money was busy elsewhere. It was drift, not distress.
Upcoming Earnings
Welltower Inc (WELL) reports today after the close. Analysts expect EPS of 0.69 on revenue of 3,603.44 million.
Cadence Design Systems Inc (CDNS) reports today after the close. Analysts expect EPS of 1.13 on revenue of 1,612.94 million.
Nucor Corp (NUE) reports today after the close. Analysts expect EPS of 5.76 on revenue of 10,834.37 million.
Public Storage (PSA) reports today after the close. Analysts expect EPS of 2.27 on revenue of 1,322.83 million.
PayPal Holdings Inc (PYPL) reports tomorrow before the market opens. Analysts expect EPS of 1.26 on revenue of 8,712.83 million.
Upcoming Dividends
Royal Bank of Canada (RY) goes ex-dividend today at $1.76 (yield 2.48%).
Caterpillar Inc (CAT) goes ex-dividend today at $1.63 (yield 0.92%).
Paychex Inc (PAYX) goes ex-dividend today at $1.19 (yield 3.77%).
Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BNY) goes ex-dividend today at $0.63 (yield 1.52%).