Midterm Elections Settled, Bargain Hunters Flock to U.S. Tech Stocks
nashnova research
With US midterm results largely in, Nasdaq 100 futures pared an early 2.4% drop as bargain hunters moved in; Deutsche Bank has upgraded tech, arguing positioning now sits far below earnings growth and already prices in the risks.
The election result is in — why is the market relieved?
Democrats took both chambers, matching what markets had priced in for months — the removal of uncertainty is itself bullish.
Barclays equity strategist Emmanuel Cau says fears of a nationwide data-centre ban are "overblown" given Trump's own pro-AI stance; meaningful policy tightening is unlikely near-term.
This means → the election itself was never the risk — the uncertainty ahead of it was. With the shoe dropped, capital reprices on fundamentals.
Why did Deutsche Bank upgrade tech right now?
The sector has pulled back to the bottom rail of its ten-year relative trend channel, and positioning has been sharply cut.
Current positioning implies growth of roughly 10% — far below the ~47% actual pace in Q3 and the ~36% consensus for year-end next year.
In plain terms = fund managers' tech weightings are priced as if growth is about to stall, yet actual earnings are still running hot — a clear gap between positioning and profit.
Can near-term demand data hold up?
The big three cloud providers remain strong: AWS grew 39%, Azure nearly 50%, and Google Cloud sales more than doubled year-on-year.
On the hardware side, ASML says planned capacity over the next two years may not meet customer demand.
Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya's team notes that the dot-com era was excess capacity chasing weak demand; the AI boom is the opposite — abundant demand chasing scarce compute. Chip valuations have already "priced in the end of the cycle."
Where are the risk flashpoints?
Goldman Sachs flags that markets still price elevated event risk around Nvidia's next earnings report; S&P 500 implied move is comparable to pre-election levels.
On the funding side, Oracle completed a debt-equity hybrid raise this week and Meta is seeking new debt — proceeds ultimately tie back to compute procurement by AI labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
Anthropic's Q3 revenue grew more than 10× year-on-year, yet some traders were still disappointed. This reflects expectations for AI monetisation that are already extremely high — even stunning growth may not be enough.
Can the rally last?
Seasonality typically favours stocks in November–December, and the Nasdaq 100 is testing its 200-day moving average near oversold territory — historically, this combination has often marked a bounce.
BlackRock strategists Jean Boivin and Wei Li wrote: "Four years of AI investment fervour have driven earnings expectations sharply higher — investors now need to see the proof."
In plain terms = technicals and seasonality are helping, but what truly decides how far this rally runs is Nvidia's earnings and the direction of AI regulation — those two cards haven't been turned yet.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。