Key Highlights

  • CoreWeave finished among the top 20 gainers on the Nasdaq-100 on Friday, with no company-specific news found, as investors returned to AI-infrastructure names in a session dominated by AI hardware and cloud stocks.
  • A report said Amazon is in talks to move about $8 billion of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into a special-purpose vehicle and Lease them back, while Amazon also announced a price increase on its EC2 Capacity Blocks for Machine Learning GPU rentals.
  • A separate report said a Broadcom financing syndicate is amassing roughly $60 billion to fund chips for Anthropic and other AI companies, underscoring the capital-intensive nature of the AI build-out.
  • The Nasdaq-100 closed at a record 30,807.93, though Treasury yields reversed to close higher after an early drop, a key variable for a company that relies on borrowing to fund data centers.

CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) closed higher on Friday, October 2, finishing among the top 20 gainers on the Nasdaq-100 in a session that belonged to AI hardware and cloud names. CoreWeave rents out vast clusters of Nvidia graphics processors to AI developers and large tech firms, making it one of the purest listed plays on Demand for AI computing power. No company-specific news was found for Friday; investors were simply returning to AI-infrastructure names, and CoreWeave moved with that tide.

A Neighbourhood Full of Gainers

The AI-cloud group had several reasons to cheer. Nebius Group, a direct rival in renting out GPU capacity, was among the Nasdaq-100's strongest stocks after it agreed to buy inference-optimisation firm Inferize for its Token Factory platform. BNP Paribas upgraded Nebius to Outperform with a $399 target, saying its outlook had meaningfully improved since June.

IREN, another data-center operator that has pivoted toward AI hosting, traded at $42.03, helped by what was described as an AI-infrastructure rebound and a read-through from Applied Digital.

The chips CoreWeave buys also had a strong day. Nvidia hit a record high during the session after Morgan Stanley named it its top semiconductor pick. Server makers Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell and Super Micro Computer all climbed.

Financing in Focus

Two stories on Friday touched on a key question for AI-cloud operators: how the industry pays for its enormous chip purchases.

A report said a Broadcom financing syndicate is amassing roughly $60 billion to fund chips for Anthropic and other AI companies. Separately, a report said Amazon is in talks to move about $8 billion of Nvidia Grace Blackwell chips into a special-purpose vehicle and lease them back. Amazon also announced a price increase on its EC2 Capacity Blocks for machine learning, its short-term GPU rentals, effective next week.

Higher rental prices at a giant like Amazon point to firm demand for AI computing time, which is the Business CoreWeave is in. The talks about special-purpose-vehicle chip financing show how capital-intensive the build-out has become.

The Macro Tailwind

Friday's broader rally was sparked by the September jobs report. Employers added just 29,000 jobs versus forecasts of around 84,000, and the Unemployment rate ticked up. That cut expectations for another Fed rate hike at the October 27-28 meeting, following the September 16 increase.

For heavily financed growth companies, a less aggressive Fed is good news. The Nasdaq-100 closed at a record 30,807.93, up 306.37 points.

But the Bond Market sent a mixed signal. Treasury yields fell after the data, then reversed to close higher, with the 10-year near its highest level since 2002. For a company that relies on borrowing to fund data centers, long-term rates remain a key variable.

Watching AI Financing and Cloud Spending

CoreWeave investors will look for further detail on large AI financing deals, including the Broadcom syndicate and Amazon's leaseback talks, as signs of how Capital is flowing to AI compute. The Fed's October 27-28 meeting and the direction of the 10-year Treasury Yield will shape appetite for rate-sensitive growth stocks. Earnings season starts with PepsiCo on October 8 and Delta on October 9, and commentary from tech giants later in the season on AI spending will matter most for the AI-cloud trade.