The Market Didn't Turn on AI . It Started Sorting.
$Microsoft(MSFT)$ up 7.70% after hours. $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$, down 7.10%. Same evening, same underlying fact — both companies are spending unholy amounts of money on AI — and fifteen points of daylight between them. Read those two numbers alone and you'd conclude the market turned on AI capex. It didn't. It did something more annoying: it started sorting. Start with who flipped the switch. The July FOMC didn't move rates and didn't change a word of the guidance. Warsh spoke, and within thirty minutes the ten worst names on the tape were almost all AI. The S&P 500 closed down 1.52% at 7,316.15, the Nasdaq Composite down 1.74%,