Equities are holding firm as we look to close out the week. Crude oil is up a bit along with gold and silver, while the dollar is down. Treasuries are hugging the flatline.
OpenAI and Anthropic continue to battle for dominance in the AI sector, and the former just revealed it has taken a big financial step forward. The ChatGPT model founder said its annualized revenue run rate surged to $40 billion, up from around $20 billion in late-2025. The gains stemmed from increased acceptance of its coding software, plus higher subscription and advertising sales. OpenAI has said it wants to go public before long to raise more capital for expansion and investment.
AMZN, GOOGL, RDDT (YTD % Change)
Source: TradingView
Meanwhile, soaring private AND public valuations for AI and tech company investments (rather than core operations) are helping boost S&P 500 Index (^SPX) earnings – a fact bears are latching on to. Companies like Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) are allowed to include increases in the value of equity investments in their bottom line results. So, when valuations rise across a sector like tech, it makes reported profits look better - even when those gains are unrealized.
Case in point: “Other income” totaled $121 billion at Alphabet in the last quarter. That was good for about 10% of ALL reported Q2 earnings for S&P companies. Amazon’s gains chipped in another 5%. The boost stemmed from holdings in firms like SpaceX and Anthropic.
Finally, the S&P is getting a new member – and its shares are popping on the news. The social media site Reddit Inc. (RDDT) will join the vaunted index on August 18, sending Reddit stock up 12%. The firm’s CEO Steve Huffman said users appreciate its human-driven, more-authentic content in an era of AI “slop.” Earnings per share jumped 178% and revenue rose 61% in the most recent quarter. But the stock has nevertheless struggled, losing 31% year-to-date on concerns about competition.
