Good morning! A TSMC-caused chip rout on Thursday pulled stocks into the red amid more signs of a healthy labor market as initial jobless claims fell.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell 0.5%, the Nasdaq (^IXIC) 1.5%, and the Dow (^DJI) 0.2%. Oil prices rose further into the mid-$80s as the Iran situation continues to smolder — sending shipping traffic down.

What we're watching Friday: The week's big earnings are over — a few smaller financials will report today — but we have our eye on the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment data, inflation expectations, and how markets digest Netflix's (NFLX) mixed quarterly results.

Yahoo Finance Morning Brief is written by Ethan Wolff-Mann.

See what else is trending on Yahoo Finance.

(AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, archivo)

Determining what is good or bad news for the AI trade is not always easy.

If you look at quarterly results and initial news stories, here are some phrases that are common to see, which we saw Thursday after TSMC reported:

Big numbers in the books, and a big multiyear outlook ahead. But investors gave it the thumbs down, likely needled by pricing concerns and, once again, mega capex spending.

TSMC's stock fell around 4% on Thursday and triggered a chip stock rout that saw Nvidia, Micron, AMD, SK Hynix, Broadcom, Intel, Qualcomm, and more all tumble significantly — taking Nvidia's market cap below the $5 trillion mark.

While some language of concern had us wondering about a lurch downward, it's very hard to guess which way and by how much investors will move following an earnings release, leaving investors and much of the financial media looking around and watching the crowd for a collective hive-based judgment.

Which is why, as we get into the meat of earnings season, we'll be watching companies and their results, but also monitoring the mood in the room. That context is as important as anything else.

(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

Legendary journalist Bethany McLean (co-author of "The Smartest Guys in the Room," and some work with yours truly) noted something recently that's gotten remarkably little attention about SpaceX:

"The recent initial public offering for SpaceX was the biggest stock sale the world has ever seen, with shares priced as if life on Mars were a sure thing. The company’s debt, on the other hand, is priced as if it were junk."

The hyped moment of AI and space has both stratospheric goals and stratospheric costs, leading to a very interesting dichotomy between AI stocks and AI bonds that SpaceX illustrates so well.

As it turns out, this infrastructure shopping spree can squeeze, something Oracle is learning as it risks tanking its credit rating by spending more than it's taking in. Unlike Meta or Google, it doesn't have a big advertising business printing money to keep it in the black.

Some of these stretched companies may have to choose between strengthening their stock or their bond — a tough place to be.

(Wera Rodsawang via Getty Images)

Electricians are making huge money in the AI moment, pulling in $280,000 in data centers on a regular basis with as much overtime as they want.

As the Fed's Beige Book quote above shows, know-how is at a premium — and the hyperscalers are willing to pay.

That's news you can use, sort of, if you're interested in the trades, as the track to commercial electrician is well-marked.

But the AI engineers at companies like Anthropic are making literal millions. Furthermore, if they were hired a few years ago, their equity could very well be over $70 million. As BI's Arielle Pardes notes, these aren't cherry-picked anomalies but representations of scores of people.

And apparently, they're going to hit San Francisco like a wealth tsunami when Anthropic IPOs, which could see the very definition of money become warped in the small-ish but well-populated city with an already expensive real estate market.

(Matteo Della Torre/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The biggest consumer hurdle for EV adoption used to be "range anxiety," running out of charge before reaching a plug.

But with the US charging network's growth (albeit not at gas station levels yet) and longer range numbers for EVs, the new barrier to adoption is one that's much more familiar. 

The cars are simply too expensive, according to consulting firm McKinsey's big Mobility Consumer Pulse 2026 survey.

The expensive gas seen this summer — which is returning now amid a renewed Iran conflict — has hurt. But with the $7,500 EV tax credit gone and MSRPs still enormous, that math is one-sided.

The go-getting early adopters got that credit. But the later-comers would need it even more to be convinced. As McKinsey notes, "the average budget of more conservative and cost-constrained customer cohorts may be up to $15,000 lower than that of more affluent early adopters."