Weekly Roundup: The 5 Biggest Sentiment Shifts of the Week

Welcome to the week where the 10-year Treasury yield hit 5.29%, its highest since 2007, FICO dropped 29% in a single session, and the President of the United States officially renamed artificial intelligence to 'Super Intelligence.' We are so back. Or so cooked. Honestly, hard to tell.

Let's start with the carnage. $FICO suffered its largest intraday drop on record after FHFA director Bill Pulte publicly pushed Vantage Score as an alternative to the FICO model in mortgage underwriting. That's not a bad earnings quarter, that's an existential threat to your entire business model dressed up as a policy memo. Meanwhile, $NKE finished its slow-motion collapse by reporting revenue now expected to fall in the high single digits, with the stock trading at levels last seen in 2014 and down 77% from its 2021 highs. These are not dips. These are before-and-after photos.

On the brighter side of the ledger, $CCL was the best-performing S&P 500 stock of the week after boosting its full-year outlook. 2027 bookings are already half-filled at record occupancy and pricing, and yields grew nearly 2.5% above management guidance. Rival cruise lines $RCL and $NCLH both caught the wave in sympathy. Turns out people would rather be on a boat than read the news, and frankly, same. $MAT also had a monster week, surging nearly 19-23% after the Wall Street Journal reported Authentic Brands Group is circling the toy maker with a potential offer above $20 per share.

The AI story, now apparently the SI story, dominated chatter all week. Anthropic is targeting an IPO before Thanksgiving at a valuation ranging from $1.2 trillion to $2 trillion depending on which Bloomberg podcast you caught. OpenAI is seeking a fresh $30 billion funding round at a $1.4 trillion valuation, with Q3 ARR reportedly hitting $70 billion. Meanwhile, Jim Cramer noted that over 40% of S&P 500 stocks are in bear market territory even as the index itself holds together, and market breadth is quietly deteriorating. The index is a highlight reel. The underlying game tape is rougher.

The week's stealth bullish call: Jim Bianco, one of the most persistent bond bears on the street, flipped long on Treasuries on September 25th with the 10-year at 5.17%, extending his duration to over 6 years. When the bear capitulates, you pay attention. Yields did pull back slightly by week's end, suggesting the trade may already be working. Bond markets: still the most important thing happening, still the least sexy to explain at a dinner party.

If this week had a theme, it's that the market is bifurcated in every possible direction: yields up but equities hanging in, AI hype up but public trust down, cruise bookings at records while consumer confidence hits decade lows. The rotation is violent, the divergences are extreme, and the President just coined a new acronym. Next week should be totally normal.