> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.sharespective.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The AI Unwind - URL: https://www.sharespective.com/sharespective-2026-11-06/ - Published: 2026-11-05T22:15:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-05T22:14:59.000Z - Description: Airbnb grew revenue 19% and found another US$12 billion for buybacks. - Author: Shaun Botha - Tags: Daily | ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/02/71/0271df32-cec6-421f-9f13-b06ab90e54c1/content/images/2026/08/mark-light-3.png) | SharespectiveWall Street, before morning tea | Daily newsletterFri 6 Nov 2026 | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | | ![Today's edition](https://storage.ghost.io/c/02/71/0271df32-cec6-421f-9f13-b06ab90e54c1/content/images/2026/08/kicker-1.png)The AI Unwind**Plus:** Airbnb grew revenue 19% and found another US$12 billion for buybacks. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | **Good morning, and welcome to Friday.** Wall Street handed back Wednesday's post-election rally within a single session, and then kept going. The S&P 500 fell 4.36%, its worst day since April last year, and the NASDAQ Composite lost 5.52%. The selling hit the power companies on Wednesday and the chipmakers on Thursday. Two days after the vote, the market has decided that a Congress unlikely to pass anything can still slow a data centre down. In company news, Qualcomm fell 9% after handset chip revenue dropped 26% to US$5.14 billion and its profit forecast came in light. Elsewhere, AppLovin jumped about 30% because record quarterly revenue of US$2.18 billion and its December-quarter forecast both beat expectations. Finally, Wendy's slipped after rejecting a US$1.4 billion buyout offer from Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management as too cheap. Gridlock loses its shine. ### Market snapshot | S&P 5007,353.73**▼ 4.36%** | ​ | NASDAQ24,315.00**▼ 5.52%** | ​ | NZX 5014,090.97**▲ 2.23%** | | -------------------------- | - | -------------------------- | - | --------------------------- | | ​ | | | | | | ASX 2009,065.10**▲ 2.61%** | ​ | NvidiaUS$181.60**▼ 9.26%** | ​ | MicronUS$656.39**▼ 17.46%** | US index levels are Thursday 5 November's closes in New York. The NZX 50 and ASX 200 are Thursday's local closes, both set hours before Wall Street opened. Nvidia and Micron show Thursday's closing price and that session's move. | ​ | MARKETS | | - | ------- | ## The AI trade came apart and pushed the NASDAQ Composite into a correction The NASDAQ Composite closed at 24,315.00 on Thursday, down 1,421.52 points. That is 11.9% below the record close of 27,599.89 it set on 6 October. A fall of 10% from a record is what the market calls a correction. **So why turn on a result the market cheered on Wednesday?** Wednesday read a Democratic Congress as gridlock, and gridlock as a brake on policy. Thursday read it as closer scrutiny of every new data centre, and the chip companies are the ones selling into that buildout. The selling concentrated in the chipmakers. Nvidia fell 9.26% to US$181.60 and Micron 17.46% to US$656.39\. AMD lost about 15%. The PHLX Semiconductor Index, which tracks the sector, fell 12%. Nvidia has now given back its whole year. It closed 2025 at US$186.50, and Thursday left it about 3% below that level. Not everything fell. Brent crude rose about 3% to just over US$97 a barrel, clawing back part of the slide it took when Iran and the United States began talking on Monday. | The long viewnothing about AI demand changed on Thursday. What changed is the price the market will pay for a buildout that local voters can now slow down. Our read is that Nvidia's order book on 17 November settles more of this than any ballot measure. | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ​ | TRAVEL | | - | ------ | ## Airbnb grew revenue 19% and authorised another US$12 billion of buybacks Airbnb reported revenue of US$4.87 billion for the September quarter, up 19% on a year earlier. Analysts had expected about US$4.75 billion. Earnings came in at US$3.16 a share against the US$2.85 forecast. **That 19% is the fastest Airbnb has grown in more than three years.** Revenue grew 10% in the same quarter last year. Guests booked 155 million nights and seats, up 16%, and the value of those bookings rose 21% to US$27.7 billion. Margins went with it. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax and depreciation, a rough measure of operating profit, reached US$2.51 billion. That is 52% of revenue, up from 50% a year earlier. Net income rose 38% to US$1.89 billion. The forecast did the rest. Airbnb now expects full-year revenue growth in the high teens, up from the mid-teens or better it had been guiding to. December-quarter revenue is guided to between US$3.22 billion and US$3.28 billion. The share price told two stories. Airbnb fell about 3.5% during the session as the market sold everything, then rose about 10% once the numbers were out. | The fine printthe average nightly rate rose 4% to US$179, so part of that 19% is price rather than more guests. I'd want to see nights and seats still growing at 16% next year, when the comparisons get harder. | | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ​ | RETAIL | | - | ------ | ## David Jones went into administration 188 years after it opened in Sydney David Jones called in voluntary administrators on Thursday. The department store chain has 38 stores and more than 5,600 staff, and it has been trading since 1838\. McGrathNicol is the administrator, and FTI Consulting has been appointed receivers. **The trigger was unpaid rent.** Scentre Group, which runs the Westfield centres in Australia and New Zealand, said David Jones had not paid rent since the end of September. Talks with the landlord broke down this week. The stores stay open for now. FTI Consulting will run the business while it is restructured and put up for sale. Erica Berchtold, the chief executive, said the company has a well-developed plan to reset the business for the future. The backdrop is an Australian consumer under pressure. The Reserve Bank of Australia has raised its cash rate five times this year, to 4.85%. Wages are rising more slowly than prices, and house prices are falling. Robert Crawford of RMIT University argues the model stopped working long ago. Department stores once sold convenience, service, and brands you could not buy anywhere else. Online retail took all three. | The testwho buys this. Anchorage Capital Partners bought David Jones from South Africa's Woolworths Holdings, and receivers now run it. The list of stores that survive the restructure will be the only honest statement about which ones were ever paying their way. | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ### Newsworthy numbers | ​ | ​ | ​ | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | - | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 189,000new claims for US unemployment benefits in the week to 31 October, down 6,000 and level with July's 57-year low. | ​ | 4.00%the Bank of England's new Bank Rate after Thursday's quarter-point rise, its first increase since August 2023\. One of the nine rate-setters wanted half a point. | | ​ | | | | ​ | ​ | ​ | | 3.6%the annualised rate at which American worker productivity grew in the September quarter, comfortably ahead of what economists expected. | ​ | 28.09where the VIX, the market's measure of expected volatility, touched on Thursday. It was last that high on 31 March. | ### Worth a read | ​ | | | -- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 01 | **[Tough Christmas ahead as inflation, interest rates bite household budgets](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-03/tough-christmas-looms-amid-inflation-interest-rate-rise/107340208?ref=sharespective.com)** — Jessica Irvine on what the fifth rate rise of the year does to an Australian household heading into December. She has wages growing 3.4% against inflation of 3.7%, so this is the year real pay went backwards. | | ​ | | | 02 | **[DDR5 laptop memory prices surge 6X in 12 months](https://www.tomshardware.com/laptops/laptop-maker-says-ddr5-so-dimms-are-6x-pricier-than-last-year-schenker-says-other-component-costs-are-rising-too-announces-price-hikes?ref=sharespective.com)** — the AI data centres hoovering up memory chips now show up in the price of a laptop. German builder Schenker has raised its prices and expects the shortage to run through 2027. | | ​ | | | 03 | **[From social media 'misfire' to beer-drinking empire](https://thehustle.co/news/from-social-media-misfire-to-beer-drinking-empire?ref=sharespective.com)** — Bill Meincke on Friday Beers, the comedy channel two brothers launched in 2019 and which one of them called the greatest misfire of all time. It now runs more than 25 brands and makes shows for FX, Paramount and Netflix. | | ​ | | | 04 | **[115-million-year-old dinosaur bones yield chemical evidence of ancient blood](https://interestingengineering.com/culture/115-million-year-old-dinosaur-bones?ref=sharespective.com)** — Atharva Gosavi on a Curtin University team that found mineralised red blood cells and collagen amino acids in a theropod from northeastern Brazil. A mineral called hausmannite held the cells together. | | ​ | | | 05 | **[Burying the Evidence](https://longreads.com/2026/11/05/time-capsules-ashley-stimpson/?ref=sharespective.com)** — Ashley Stimpson on why time capsules almost never work. About 22 million Americans signed 917,000 scrolls for a 1976 bicentennial capsule, and the whole stack went missing from a former insulation factory near Valley Forge. | ### Wrapping up America's October jobs report lands at 2.30​am Saturday in Auckland and 12.30​am in Sydney. Economists have settled on about 60,000 new jobs, against September's 29,000, and expect unemployment to hold at 4.2%. October inflation follows at 2.30​am Wednesday in Auckland and 12.30​am in Sydney. Rocket Lab reports after Monday's close in New York, about 10​am Tuesday in Auckland, and the Neutron timeline matters more than the quarter. Revenue is guided to between US$250 million and US$265 million. Cisco follows on Thursday, and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's Financial Stability Report lands on 17 November. USD/NZD was little changed at 1.78, and USD/AUD at 1.43. Polls open tomorrow, New Zealand. See you then. ​ General information and commentary only, not financial advice. It does not take account of your objectives, financial situation or needs, and reflects the author's own reading of public information at the time of writing, which may be wrong. Sharespective, its people and its clients may hold positions in the companies covered. Do your own research and talk to a licensed adviser.