The S&P 500 fell 0.54% to 6,908.86 on Thursday, but the headline lied about the session. NVDA's 5.5% drop, its worst day since April, dragged the index lower. But most S&P 500 names closed higher. The Dow finished flat. The Russell 2000 added 0.52%. Breadth was green on a day the Nasdaq dropped 1.18%.

That gap matters. This was not risk-off. It was a repricing of where AI value sits.

The 10-year yield fell to 4.02%, its lowest since November. Tariff noise kept pulling capital into Treasuries. The dollar edged lower. Gold held above $5,190. Copper climbed 1.7%, adding to a February rally of over 6%. Physical AI demand has not faded even as chip stocks sold off.

S&P futures are down 0.2% pre-market. Dow futures are softer by 0.4%. Nasdaq futures are flat, which hints that the post-NVDA selling may have run its course. The VIX sits at 18.62. Elevated, but not panicked.

Today hinges on January PPI at 8:30 AM. The Street expects +0.3% headline, +0.3% core. December ran hot on energy, with final demand energy up 4.6%. A soft print today would keep the 10-year below 4.10% and push sub-4% into reach by month-end. A hot print makes life harder, because the market is leaning on falling yields to offset the tech repricing.

Trade Implication

If PPI prints at or below target, rate-plays (XLRE, XLU) and small caps (IWM) extend. The 10-year below 4% becomes a real close for February. If PPI runs hot, the value rotation stalls and the short-end trade takes over, punishing the same names that led Thursday's breadth.

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NVIDIA posted $68.1 billion in Q4 revenue, beating estimates by $2 billion. Data center revenue hit $62.3 billion, up 75% year over year. Q1 guidance came in at $78 billion, more than $5 billion above the Street. Morgan Stanley called it the largest clean beat in chip history.

The stock dropped 5.5%.

The numbers were not the problem. The question changed. For two years, the AI trade asked: is demand real? NVIDIA answered that every quarter. The new question is: will the capex produce returns? NVIDIA cannot answer that. The answer depends on what Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta do with the chips after they buy them.

That is why Dell's after-hours move was the bigger signal. Dell posted Q4 revenue of $33.4 billion, up 39%, with EPS of $3.89 against a $3.44 estimate. The AI server backlog grew to $43 billion. FY2027 guidance: $138 to $142 billion in revenue, $12.90 in EPS. Both crushed the Street.

The stock jumped nearly 8%.

Dell worked because it sits on the other side of the question. Servers are ordered, contracted, and backordered. They convert to revenue on delivery dates, not on adoption curves. When the market says "show me the cash flow," Dell has receipts.

This split will define AI trades for the next quarter. Chip premium versus hardware margin. Upside bets versus backlog. The trade is not "long AI" or "short AI." It is long the parts of the stack where demand has already turned into contracts, and cautious on the parts where price still depends on what happens downstream.

Execution Bias

Dell (DELL) and copper miners (COPX, up 12% in February alone) are the plays where demand-to-revenue is visible. NVDA and the broader SOX index need a catalyst earnings cannot provide: proof that AI inference revenue at the cloud giants is scaling. Until that comes, chip stocks drift while the buildout names re-rate.

Thursday was a study in divergence. NVDA and the chip complex dragged mega-cap indices lower, but the equal-weight S&P 500 beat the cap-weighted index. Banks, industrials, and healthcare all posted gains. Small caps, often the first to fall in a true risk-off move, were green.

The software rout continued. The iShares Tech-Software ETF (IGV) has now lost more than 10% in February, its worst month since the 2022 rate shock. Salesforce posted solid numbers and it did not help. Snowflake beat and guided higher and it did not help. The sector is trapped between two fears that JPMorgan has noted cannot both be true. Either AI disrupts software models, which means AI firms should be worth more. Or capex will not pay off, which means software should worry less. The market is pricing both at once. The market is pricing both at once. That tension rarely resolves cleanly.

Jensen Huang pushed back, telling CNBC that the market got software "most illogically wrong". He argued that names like ServiceNow will build agents tuned for their own platforms. The market did not care. When mood overrides results, the sell-off runs on position unwinds, not on facts. Those take time.

The global rotation kept going. MSCI Asia Pacific is on pace for its best February since 1998. The Hang Seng added 1.7% overnight. Europe's STOXX index has now posted eight straight monthly gains, its longest streak in 13 years. Capital is moving to markets where AI is a tailwind for hardware and industry, not a threat to current business models.

Execution Bias 

Do not catch the software knife. IGV's unwind is not done, and the trigger to reverse it, proof that AI agents expand SaaS revenue rather than replace it, is quarters away. The rotation into global equities (EFA, AAXJ) and copper plays (COPX, FCX) has both momentum and a thesis behind it.

Trade Rep Jamieson Greer said Wednesday that tariff rates for some countries could rise to 15% or higher from the current 10%. He did not say which countries or when. Trump's State of the Union held the tariff line but added no detail. The Supreme Court ruling that struck down broad IEEPA tariffs still binds, and the White House has not shown a clear path around it.

The bond market's response was telling. The 10-year yield fell to 4.02%, a three-month low, even as tariff talk grew louder. Treasuries are acting as if tariffs are a growth drag, not a price driver. That is a real shift from 2024, when every tariff headline pushed yields higher on cost fears. Now the market prices the second-order effect: tariff fog chills spending, slows hiring, and squeezes margins before it ever shows up in retail prices.

US and Iran held the latest round of nuclear talks in Geneva. Energy prices did not move. WTI held near $65.75, flat for the week.

Investor Signal 

The 10-year below 4.05% despite sticky prices and a firm labor market is the biggest macro signal this week. If PPI confirms today, the path to sub-4% yields opens. That changes the math for every rate-linked position. Watch XLU, XLRE, and mortgage REITs (REM) as first movers.

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For most of the AI cycle, Dell was a side read. A box-mover in a story owned by NVIDIA and the cloud giants. Thursday's report flipped that. Dell's AI server backlog of $43 billion is not a guess. It is a queue. Revenue guidance of $138 to $142 billion for FY2027 is 23% growth at the midpoint. The $12.90 EPS guide beat the Street's $10.56 by 22%.

What matters beyond Dell's own stock is what the numbers reveal about AI spending. The backlog grew even as NVIDIA sold off, because the buyers placing those orders are not guessing about adoption. They are building capacity they already need. Dell's ISG segment, which holds the server business, grew 73% year over year to $19.6 billion in Q4 alone.

The AI capex cycle has two layers. The first is chips, where NVIDIA earns huge margins but where the price tag demands endless growth. The second is hardware and power, where Dell, Vertiv (VRT), and Eaton (ETN) earn less per unit but against firm, visible orders. When the market shifts from "price the dream" to "price the backlog," the second layer re-rates and the first compresses. That shift happened Thursday.

Edge Setup 

Favor Dell on sustained strength above its post-earnings range. Pair with Vertiv (VRT) and Eaton (ETN), which ride the same data center cycle. The risk is part costs squeezing margins, which Dell flagged on the call. But with a $43 billion backlog and a $10 billion buyback, the floor is higher.

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The AI trade proved demand. Now it must prove returns. NVIDIA proved the first and got sold for not proving the second. Dell proved the second and got bought for having a backlog that does not need belief.

PPI at 8:30 decides whether this split gets room to run. If wholesale prices cool, the 10-year pushes toward 4%, rate plays extend, and the buildout-over-chips trade has wind at its back. If PPI runs hot, yields snap back, breadth stalls, and the market goes back to the old question because nobody wants to face the new one.

February closes today. The S&P is on track for a 0.4% monthly loss. The Hang Seng surged 7%. European stocks posted their eighth straight monthly gain. The last time global markets beat US tech this cleanly for this long, the rotation lasted quarters, not weeks. The question for March is not whether AI spending is real. Dell settled that last night. The question is whether the market will keep paying chip prices for a cycle that looks more and more like a construction job.