NEW YORK, Feb 8, 2026, 13:39 EST — The market has closed.
Amazon.com is making waves with plans to pour around $200 billion into capex this year—think data centers, chips, the works. That figure “materially greater than consensus expected,” MoffettNathanson analysts noted. Still, CEO Andy Jassy pointed out: AWS is scaling up from a much bigger starting point than its cloud competitors. (Reuters)
Tech shares swung wildly this week, with the capex story front and center. On Friday, the Nasdaq added 2.18%. Amazon, however, dropped 5.6%. Chip stocks went the other way: Nvidia popped 7.8%, AMD rallied 8.3%, Broadcom up 7.1%, sending the PHLX semiconductor index up 5.7%. “There’s real demand for AI products,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategy analyst at Baird, who called heavy spending a “necessity” for the sector. (Reuters)
Investors have been picking through AI names, sorting out potential “enablers” from those at risk, leaving the tape choppy. A planned $600 billion spending surge by major tech players on AI has intensified concerns about margins. Worries that fresh AI tools could disrupt software and data firms are weighing hard, with some $1 trillion in market cap erased from the S&P 500 software and services index since Jan. 28, Reuters noted. “The trade got too pricey,” said Andrew Wells, CIO at SanJac Alpha, describing it simply as “a de-risking” play. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, for his part, said appetite for the company’s latest chips remains “sky-high.” (Reuters)
The strain in the market has sparked a move out of major tech stocks and into smaller, more affordable names. Tim Murray, capital markets strategist at T. Rowe Price, noted that a halt in selling “carried markets higher,” and was matched by “aggressive buying of altogether different stocks.” According to Murray: “Now, they’re all chasing to buy cheaper companies, perhaps indiscriminately.” (Reuters)
The fallout is spilling over into trades linked to software valuations and leverage. “The trigger,” according to Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide, was the slump in software stocks. That’s sparked worries about “loan exposure and leverage,” with alternative asset managers and private equity names also taking a hit as the downdraft ripples through. (Reuters)
Right now, traders are waiting to see if Friday’s chip bounce has legs, or if the market just reverts to the fast-selling that pummeled software stocks earlier this week. Tech—making up nearly a third of the S&P 500—has shed about 9% since late October highs. Software and services? Down 15% in barely more than a week, according to Reuters. Edward Jones senior investment strategist Angelo Kourkafas called “rotation” the big story this year and pointed out that tech faces a “high” bar. (Reuters)
This week’s schedule doesn’t offer much relief. The rescheduled U.S. jobs report lands Wednesday, with S&P Global Market Intelligence projecting January payrolls will rise by around 70,000—up from 50,000 in December—while unemployment likely sticks at 4.4%. January’s CPI figures are on deck for Friday. (S&P Global)
The setup’s murky. A hotter inflation read or an uptick in wage growth might jolt rate bets sharply—tech stocks with lofty valuations usually get hit first. There’s another risk, too: within tech, chipmakers might keep rallying, but investors could hammer anything that signals AI spending is outpacing actual cash coming in any time soon.
Here’s the lineup: The U.S. Labor Department has the January Employment Situation report slated for Feb. 11, 8:30 a.m. ET. Then, two days later, watch for January’s Consumer Price Index, also set for 8:30 a.m. ET on Feb. 13. (bls.gov)
