Auto Giants Face Headwinds as AI Bets Pile Up

European Autos in Focus

Europe's car sector is centre stage this week. Porsche AG opened the earnings run today. Mercedes-Benz follows Wednesday and Volkswagen on Thursday. ORTEX alt data adds a note of caution. Dutch car registrations, which lead Mercedes-Benz revenue by 26 days with a strong fit, are running 6% below the same quarter last year. Austrian registrations, which lead Volkswagen revenue by 18 days, are also down 6%. Renault's Dutch leading data is worse at minus 19%. The direction is clear heading into the prints.

AI Ambitions Drive Fresh Short Bets

Anthropic's reported $750 billion compute plan kept AI infrastructure stocks in the headlines Tuesday. Oracle shares jumped on the back of cloud demand enthusiasm. Bears are not entirely convinced. CoreWeave now sits at 26.4% short interest as a percentage of free float, up 4.2 points in a week. Short sellers also added heavily to Liquidia Corporation, whose SI of FF rose 8 points to 26.7%.

Index Rebalance Pressure Builds

Moderna is the biggest single forced-flow story in markets right now. ORTEX Index Rebalance Radar gives it an 88% probability of rejoining the MSCI World in the November review. Tracker buying would reach $4.4 billion, equal to 1.1 days of normal volume. The announcement is due 11 November. Separately, Life Time Group Holdings sits 0.1% below the Russell 2000 exit line with a 30 October rank date. A move either way triggers between $346 million and $937 million of forced trading.

Analysts Raise Tech Targets

Wall Street lifted targets on Dell Technologies and Palantir today. Dell's consensus target moved to $595. Palantir's rose to $209, though 19 of 26 covering analysts still rate it a Sell, reflecting deep disagreement on valuation.