Higher interest rates and AI safety fears put the stock market to the test last week — SkimNews
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- The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate a quarter point to 3.75%-4% — its first hike in three years — with Chair Kevin Warsh declaring "inflation is too high and has been for too long," driving the Dow down 1.7% for its third straight losing week and Goldman Sachs down nearly 8.5% as the worst Dow performer.
- AI stocks wobbled after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's Sept. 12 essay called for slowing frontier model development; OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk co-signed the concerns, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back on "Mad Money," saying companies should self-test products before release.
- CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks rose roughly 15% and 10% for the week, respectively, on the thesis that more powerful AI agents will drive increased cybersecurity spending — a counter-trend move as broader AI names sold off early in the week.
- Salesforce at its Dreamforce conference projected more than $63 billion in fiscal year 2030 revenue, topping the $59.2 billion analyst consensus, and unveiled AIforce plus a reasoning model called Koa built with Nvidia; Jim Cramer called the stock "way too cheap" at roughly 15x forward earnings.
- Oil prices spiked Tuesday with WTI and Brent crude hitting their highest levels since mid-May on Middle East conflict-driven supply concerns before a three-session pullback; Boeing, FedEx, and FedEx Freight were among the week's biggest losers as oil-sensitive names took the hit.
- The Investing Club added to its Micron and BNY positions during sell-offs, with BNY highlighted for having roughly 70% fee-based revenue that insulates it from higher deposit costs; the 10-year Treasury yield finished the week back at 5% after touching nearly two-decade highs above 5.04% during the oil surge.
Why it matters: The Fed's first rate hike in three years crushed banks (Goldman Sachs -8.5%), while AI safety fears lifted CrowdStrike (+15%) and Palo Alto Networks (+10%) — direct evidence that cybersecurity demand is now decoupled from the broader AI trade, and that even in a down tape, sector rotation tied to macro tightening and AI risk is producing sharply divergent winners and losers.
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