增长放缓。现金储备不断缩水。业务线被蚕食。推动市场和经济的人工智能热潮正面临越来越多的压力点。
Slowing growth. Dwindling cash piles. Cannibalized business lines. Pressure points are multiplying across the artificial-intelligence boom that has propelled markets and the economy.
人工智能交易的裂痕本周不断扩大，最终在周五引发科技股大幅抛售，纳斯达克综合指数创下自6月以来最差单日表现，以及一年多来最差单月表现。
The cracks in the AI trade widened through the week, culminating in a sharp tech selloff Friday that sent the Nasdaq composite to its worst day since June and its worst month in more than a year.
华尔街最青睐的这笔交易，其脆弱性已积累数月，并不时在那些债台高筑的小公司身上显现。每一次，支撑美国人工智能建设的大型企业都用亮眼的利润安抚华尔街，暗示即便在利率更高的世界里，这场盛宴仍将继续。
The vulnerabilities in Wall Street’s favorite trade have been building for months, periodically appearing around smaller companies drowning in debt. Each time, the largest firms behind America’s AI build-out have reassured Wall Street by printing profits, suggesting the show will go on even in a world of higher interest rates.
本周则不同。在科技股连续数周原地踏步之后，人工智能巨头Anthropic凭借一份显示营收飙升的上市申请文件，一度让投资者重拾信心——该公司正筹备首次公开募股。但随后，已上市的科技公司陆续公布财报，市场由此迎来现实检验。
This week was different. After tech stocks had treaded water for weeks, AI giant Anthropic momentarily rejuvenated investors with a filing that showed soaring revenue ahead of its planned initial public offering. But then publicly traded tech firms reported earnings—and markets got a reality check.
首先是Alphabet令人失望的季报，显示谷歌搜索广告业务增长放缓，部分原因是“AI模式”查询带来的影响。交易员周四用脚投票，该股大跌13%，创下有史以来最差单日表现，重创了伯克希尔·哈撒韦等Alphabet主要股东。
First came a dissatisfying quarterly report from Alphabet, which showed that growth in Google’s search-advertising business slowed—in part because of the impact of “AI mode” queries. Traders punished the stock with a 13% decline Thursday that marked its worst day on record, hammering major Alphabet shareholders such as Berkshire Hathaway.
随后科技股的坏消息进一步加剧。周四晚间，亚马逊公布自由现金流骤降，营收也低于分析师预期。美国芯片制造巨头英特尔预计个人电脑销售将长期放缓，原因是人工智能热潮推动内存芯片价格飙升，形成压力。
Then the bad tech vibes got worse. Late Thursday, Amazon reported plunging free cash flow and revenue that missed analyst estimates. American chip-making giant Intel forecast a prolonged slowdown in personal-computer sales, pressured by memory-chip prices sent skyrocketing by the AI boom.
英特尔股价周五暴跌29%，创下这家在美国股市交易数十年的公司有史以来最差单日表现。此次暴跌使该公司两大股东——美国政府和英伟达——合计持有的纸面财富蒸发超过170亿美元。
Intel shares on Friday crashed 29%, the worst session on record for a company that has traded on the U.S. stock market for decades. The plunge vaporized more than $17 billion in combined paper holdings by two of the company’s largest shareholders: the U.S. government and Nvidia.
损失波及整个科技板块：“科技七巨头”成员当日全线收跌，存储芯片供应商、半导体制造商和新型云服务公司的股价也纷纷下挫。往往与风险较高股票同步波动的比特币价格下跌超过5%。随着当日时间推移，抛售势头增强，拖累纳斯达克综合指数当日下跌2.9%。
The losses bled across the tech sector: Every member of the Magnificent Seven ended the day in the red, while shares of memory providers, semiconductor manufacturers and neocloud companies also tumbled. Bitcoin prices, which often move in tandem with riskier stocks, slumped more than 5%. As the day wore on, the selloff gained steam, dragging the Nasdaq composite to a 2.9% drop on the day.
OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners首席投资官彼得·布克瓦表示：“眼下，我们看到地面正在震动。你未必能把每一道裂缝彼此联系起来。但当裂缝足够多时，最终会不会导致道路塌陷？”“这对市场是一次重大的信心考验，”他补充道。
“Right now, we’re seeing tremors in the ground,” said Peter Boockvar, the chief investment officer at OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners. “You can’t necessarily connect the cracks to each other. But when enough cracks take place, does that eventually lead to the road caving in?”“It’s a major gut check for the market,” he added.
这轮抛售让一些投资者警告回调还将继续，另一些人则在等待Anthropic和OpenAI备受期待的IPO为下一轮涨势添柴。与此同时，下周的中期选举可能决定全美各地对数据中心的反对情绪在多大程度上转化为对开发的限制。
The selloff has left some investors warning that the pullback will continue—and others waiting for expected IPOs by Anthropic and OpenAI to fuel the next leg of the rally. At the same time, next week’s midterm elections could decide the extent to which data-center backlash nationwide translates to restrictions on development.
自OpenAI于2022年推出ChatGPT、推动AI竞赛启动以来，投资者往往不加区分地蜂拥而入，使指数过度集中于市值万亿美元的巨头。但美联储9月加息——以及华尔街预期还会有更多加息——改变了投资者的盘算。
Since OpenAI’s 2022 launch of ChatGPT kicked the AI race into gear, investors have often piled in indiscriminately, leaving indexes top-heavy with trillion-dollar giants. But the Federal Reserve’s September rate hike—and Wall Street’s expectation of more to come—has changed investors’ calculus.
美联储主席凯文·沃什本周表示：“利率直接或间接地影响几乎一切。你可以看到，市场参与者正在对他们想做的投资类型加以区分。”借贷成本上升的前景近期重创了AI交易中风险最高的角落之一——包括CoreWeave在内的新兴公司，这些公司出租高端芯片用于训练和运行AI模型。尽管如此，许多投资者仍相信硅谷那些规模更大的“印钞机”将不受影响——以至于在9月债券收益率走高之际，一些人甚至转向超大型科技股寻求避险。
“Interest rates affect—directly, or indirectly—almost everything,” Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said this week. “You see market participants that are discriminating between the kinds of investments they want to make.”The specter of higher borrowing costs recently battered one of the riskiest corners of the AI trade, upstart companies including CoreWeave that rent high-end chips to train and run AI models. Still, many investors believed that Silicon Valley’s larger cash-printing machines would be immune—to the extent that some even sought shelter in megacap tech stocks as bond yields marched higher in September.
如今，交易员们正在应对一种前景：市场领先科技公司由人工智能驱动的利润增长，从现在起只会放缓。根据FactSet的分析，在亚马逊和Alphabet发布财报后，“七巨头”第三季度的盈利增长预计将低于标普500指数其余成分股公司。
Now, traders are grappling with the prospect that AI-powered profit growth at the market’s leading tech firms will only cool off from here. Following Amazon and Alphabet reports, the Magnificent Seven are now expected to report slower earnings growth for the third-quarter than the remaining members of the S&P 500, according to a FactSet analysis.
“看空理由是，盈利峰值比我们想象的更近，”Truist Advisory Services首席投资官基思·勒纳表示。
“The bear case is that peak earnings are closer than we thought,” said Keith Lerner, chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services.
迄今为止，华尔街基本上对巨额支出持宽容态度，因为大公司创造了现金来为芯片、数据中心等方面的大规模支出提供资金。直到最近，“如果你在花钱，那表明你对这轮建设有信心。你会因为花钱而得到回报，”Tema ETFs投资策略主管佩斯利·纳尔迪尼说。
Wall Street had been largely permissive of big spending until now because large companies printed cash to finance massive expenditures on chips, data centers and more. Until recently, “if you were spending, that shows conviction in this build-out. You get rewarded for spending money,” said Paisley Nardini, head of investment strategy at Tema ETFs.
“突然间，”她补充说，“花现金被视为逆风，而不是顺风。”现金储备不断缩水，使科技巨头转向投资者寻求帮助，从Alphabet和Meta近几个月宣布的大规模股权发行，到整个行业的债务发行规模膨胀至每年数千亿美元。
“All of the sudden,” she added, “spending cash is seen as a headwind, not a tailwind.”Shrinking cash stockpiles have left tech giants turning to investors for help, from massive equity offerings announced by Alphabet and Meta in recent months to debt offerings across the sector ballooning to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
“你筹集了巨额资金。这对华尔街银行来说是好事，”Baird科技策略师特德·莫顿森说。他补充说，对于试图评估风险的投资组合经理而言，“这把他们吓得不轻。”
“You have an enormous amount of capital raised. That’s great for Wall Street banks,” said Ted Mortonson, a tech strategist at Baird. For portfolio managers trying to gauge risks, he added, “it scares the living bejesus out of them.”
他指出盈利增长可能见顶以及美伊可能再度交战的威胁，并补充说：“我的建议是避开。”特朗普总统已暗示，美国可能在下周中期选举后对伊朗发动新的军事行动。这可能加大中东能源供应进一步中断的可能性。近月布伦特原油期货周五收于每桶117.64美元，接近今年最高水平，因交易员押注油价进一步上涨，这将推高美国通胀。
Pointing to a potential peak in earnings growth and the threat of renewed U.S.-Iran fighting, he added, “My call is to get out of the way.”President Trump has signaled that the U.S. could launch new military campaigns against Iran after next week’s midterm elections. That could raise the possibility of additional disruptions of energy supplies from the Middle East. Front-month Brent crude futures Friday closed at $117.64 a barrel, near their highest level of the year, as traders bet on additional price increases that would buoy U.S. inflation.
暴力持久终结则可能带来相反的结果。“如果我们能让飞机落地，让中东实现稳定，这个市场绝对会一飞冲天，”Founders 100 ETF的投资组合经理迈克尔·莫纳汉说。
A durable end to the violence could do the opposite. “If we can land the plane and get stability in the Middle East, this market is going to absolutely rip,” said Michael Monaghan, portfolio manager of the Founders 100 ETF.
莫纳汉和许多其他投资者对Anthropic在未来几个月内提交上市申请感到鼓舞，他们指出该公司销售额飙升，客户群日益多元化。“在层层叠叠的积木拼图中，[Anthropic的IPO]是撑起整个AI交易的那块积木，”他说。
Monaghan and many other investors were encouraged by Anthropic’s filing to go public in the coming months, pointing to skyrocketing sales and a diversifying customer base. “In the Jenga puzzle, [Anthropic’s IPO] is the block to hold up this whole AI trade,” he said.
“目前这块饼足够大家分，”莫纳汉补充道。“我们看涨，AI交易还没有结束。”
“There’s enough pie to go around for now,” Monaghan added. “We’re bullish the AI trade isn’t over.”