Steep bill for AI buildout punishes Meta , other tech favorites

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• Meta Falls 3% as Higher AI Spending Outlook Overshadows Earnings Beat; Alphabet Dips, Microsoft Holds Steady

  Meta reported Q3 2026 revenue of $64.6 billion, up 26.1% year over year and above estimates, and guided Q4 revenue to $73 billion to $76 billion. Excluding a large legal settlement charge, diluted EPS was $7.40. However, Meta narrowed its full-year capex outlook to $135 billion to $145 billion and lifted total expense guidance to $175 billion to $179 billion, pushing the stock down 3% to $677.20. Unlike Alphabet and Microsoft, which also rent cloud computing capacity to outside customers, Meta earns nearly all its revenue from advertising and must fund its data centers itself; it spent $34.9 billion on capex in the quarter, posted negative free cash flow of $2.12 billion, and saw operating margin fall to 20% from 40%. Ad impressions rose 10% and the average price per ad climbed 14%, while more than 10 million people in the U.S. and Canada set up Muse within six weeks, and management expects its cost efficiency to improve more than 10x in the next year.

  Yahoo Finance·22/10, 12:56▼ META▼ GOOGL▼ QQQMETAAI investmentearnings
• Meta vs. Alphabet: Meta Is Better Built for AGI

  The Motley Fool compares Alphabet and Meta using its AIball scores, which measure how exposed a company is to AI and how much upside it has, and concludes Meta is better built for AGI. Roughly 98% of Meta's 2025 revenue came from ads that reach people while they chat or scroll, activities AI agents are unlikely to take over, and its average price per ad rose 12% in Q2 2026. Alphabet's search ads are more exposed because AI assistants can answer queries and act on them directly. However, Alphabet's TPU chips and Google Cloud, which brought in $20 billion in Q1 2026 and serve nine of the top 10 AI labs, give it a strong AI chokepoint position. Its cloud gains could still outweigh pressure on search ads if outside developers cannot get enough rival chips and power.

  Yahoo Finance·20/10, 20:43• GOOGL▲ METAMETAGOOGLartificial intelligence
• Meta Releases Open AI Model While Keeping Its Best Tech Closed

  Meta has released the weights of Muse Spark Open, a less advanced AI model designed for coding and supporting AI agents, allowing developers to run and adapt it themselves. The model is less capable than Muse Wonder, which Meta debuted earlier this week, and the release fulfills a prior commitment to make its technology widely available. Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang said Meta will generally not open-source its most powerful models due to safety and capability concerns, while arguing that American companies should release open models to maintain dominance over China. The move comes as Meta builds a cloud business selling access to AI models and computing infrastructure, and Wang said free access is a funnel that leads developers to pay for more tools and computing power. The article also notes that Chinese companies such as Alibaba and DeepSeek have achieved wide adoption with open models.

  Yahoo Finance·15/10, 17:00▲ METAMETAartificial intelligenceopen source
• Meta's Muse Agent Is a Massive Hit. I'm Still Not Sold on Meta Stock.

  Meta’s Muse AI agent reportedly has around 3 million weekly users and has topped Apple’s App Store for several weeks, and Meta’s stock has risen more than 20% since its launch. The author remains skeptical, arguing that Meta’s $145 billion in AI data center spending this year cannot be recouped by Muse subscriptions priced at $20 and $100 per month, which include 5 million and 3 billion weekly tokens respectively. Muse is a consumer product, while Microsoft and Alphabet have grown cloud revenue from enterprise AI services, and the author says users’ token consumption likely exceeds what they pay. Competition is also heating up as Apple moves closer to similar features with its newer Siri. The author cites an Oppenheimer survey in which only 8% of respondents said they would trust Meta with their passwords, compared with 30% for Alphabet and 23% for Apple.

  Yahoo Finance·15/10, 14:20▲ METAMETAartificial intelligencedata centers
• Sizing up Meta’s push into the crowded world of enterprise AI

  Meta is expanding into enterprise AI by hiring former MongoDB CEO Chirantan “CJ” Desai to build a new platform and launching Muse for Small Business, which integrates its agent with tools like Box, Figma, and Shopify. Business leaders say Muse's computer-use capabilities exceed those of rival agents and could suit small and medium-sized businesses, but they worry about security and Meta gathering more data. A Forrester analyst notes many businesses already run ad operations through Meta, while an agency questions whether Meta is “grading its own work.” Arkose Labs calls Muse the best enterprise agent it has used but is still reviewing it, since as a cloud service its data goes to Meta's data centers, which is hard for regulated firms to accept. Tinuiti finds the agent useful for small advertisers but less sophisticated than enterprise needs.

  Yahoo Finance·13/10, 18:43▲ METAMETAartificial intelligencecloud computing
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says neocloud demand is 'off the charts' but capital is scarce

  Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC on Thursday, on the sidelines of the company's GTC conference in Berlin, that demand for neocloud firms is “off the charts” and their capabilities are “extraordinary.” He said the bottleneck is the working capital needed to fuel growth, as AI demand across many sectors has created a scarcity of capital, with demand for capital far exceeding its availability. He added that this gap will be solved.

  CNBC·22/10, 10:03▲ NVDANVDAAI investmentcloud computing

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• Bank Profits Surge

  The 9-month 2026 results show many banks continued to grow profits, with some posting record quarterly earnings. VPBank's pre-tax profit reached nearly VND 30,000 billion, up nearly 47%, equal to its full-year 2025 result and about 72.4% of its 2026 plan; Q3 pre-tax profit topped VND 11,000 billion. Techcombank posted VND 28,900 billion (up 23.7%), while LPBank reported VND 10,421 billion (up nearly 9%). SSI forecasts pre-tax profit of its monitored banks to rise 19.5% in 2026 before slowing to 15.4% in 2027, pressured by narrowing net interest margins and rising credit risk provisions. It also expects system-wide credit growth of 16-17% in 2027 and 17.9% for the monitored banks.

  CafeF·23/10, 03:57▲ VNINDEXbanksearningscredit
• World's Largest Gold Fund Dumps Over 10 Tonnes of Gold as Prices Slide

  SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold fund, continued net selling of nearly 12 tonnes of gold in the 22/10 session, bringing total sales over 2 sessions to nearly 15 tonnes and cutting its holdings to about 1,046 tonnes. Spot gold fell more than 2.8% to around USD 4,025 per ounce at the close of 22/10, and briefly dipped below USD 4,000 per ounce in the morning session of 23/10. Tensions in the Middle East pushed crude oil prices higher, raising concerns about inflation and further Fed tightening, and gold has still not attracted sustained safe-haven demand even as US Treasury yields fell. US September CPI rose 0.6% month on month and 3.7% year on year, while PPI rose 1.3% and 6.3%. Markets price about an 84% chance the Fed holds rates steady at its 27-28/10 meeting and a 16% chance of a 25 basis-point increase; September PCE data due on 29/10 is the next key factor to watch.

  CafeF·23/10, 03:57▼ XAU/USD▼ PAXG/USDT▼ XAUT/USDTgoldinflationFed
• Gold Prices Continue to Fall

  On the morning of 23/10, domestic gold prices kept falling, with SJC bar prices varying by seller and the premium over world gold widening. Công ty TNHH Vàng bạc đá quý Sài Gòn listed SJC bars at VND 139-142 million per tael (buy-sell), down VND 300,000; Phú Quý was at VND 138-141.8 million, down VND 500,000; and Mi Hồng at VND 140-141.5 million, down VND 800,000. Gold rings also fell by varying amounts, with DOJI at VND 138-142 million and Phú Quý at VND 138-141 million per tael. World gold dropped USD 129 to around USD 3,992 per ounce, equal to about VND 125.3 million per tael, leaving SJC bars about VND 16.7 million per tael above the world price. The State Bank's central rate was set at 25,627 VND/USD, down 5 dong, while Vietcombank quoted 25,660-26,040 VND/USD (buy-sell).

  CafeF·23/10, 03:48▼ PAXG/USDT▼ XAUT/USDT▼ XAU/USDgoldexchange ratesState Bank of Vietnam
• Company Linked to Billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong Announces Major Good News

  VEFAC (ticker VEF), a Vingroup subsidiary, posted Q3 net revenue of nearly VND 77 billion, up 67% year on year, but a gross loss of about VND 27 billion as cost of sales from its exhibition business exceeded revenue. Q3 profit rose mainly thanks to a gross gain of about VND 65 billion from transferring some schools in a project to a partner, while financial income reached over VND 388 billion, mostly from loan and investment income. For the first nine months of 2026, after-tax profit was nearly VND 865 billion, down about 94% from VND 15,418 billion in the same period of 2025, as the prior year included large gains from transferring part of the Vinhomes Global Gate project. As of 30/9/2026, total assets stood at over VND 31,905 billion, up 36% from the start of the year, while total liabilities exceeded VND 24,364 billion, with short-term customer advances rising from VND 411 billion to over VND 8,373 billion.

  CafeF·23/10, 03:41▲ VHM▲ VICreal estateearningsVietnam
• Lotte and Phat Dat Officially Break Ground on VND 60,000 Billion Mega Project in Thu Thiem 'Golden Land'

  A joint venture between Lotte Group (South Korea) and Phát Đạt (HoSE: PDR) officially broke ground on 23/10 on Lotte Eco Smart City Thu Thiem in the Thu Thiem New Urban Area, HCMC, with total investment of about VND 60,000 billion. The project covers nearly 7.5 ha and will combine Grade A offices, retail, services, accommodation and housing, adjoining the central plaza and central lake of Thu Thiem. Phát Đạt holds 35% of Lotte Properties HCMC, the project developer, and will develop the housing blocks along with two towers (2-1 and 2-3) with about 219,722 m2 of floor area, while Lotte handles block 2-5. Lotte Properties HCMC paid VND 17,569 billion in land-use fees on 31/7/2026, and Phát Đạt completed its VND 7,666 billion payment to take its 35% stake. MB is funding all of Phát Đạt's capital contribution, while VietinBank and BIDV also support the project.

  CafeF·23/10, 03:34▲ PDRreal estatehousingbanks
• International Business : Global stocks nosedive as Meta dents AI optimism

  Global stocks retreated as tech earnings failed to ease concerns about the AI outlook, with MSCI's All-World index set for its largest daily fall in two weeks, down 0.4 per cent. Meta beat third-quarter revenue expectations, but its plan to issue non-voting stock revived worries about its mounting capital commitments, and a New Mexico judge ordered it to pay a $25 billion penalty in a data privacy case. Brent crude rose nearly 3% to $112 a barrel, near a five-month high, after more Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia raised supply risks. Investors moved into government bonds, pushing the US 10-year yield down to 5.05%, below France's for the first time in 13 years, while French yields have climbed above 5% amid concerns over social unrest and debt. The France-Germany 10-year spread reached 177.7 basis points, its widest since 2011, while gold fell 1.8% to $4,070 an ounce.

  gdnonline.com·23/10, 03:30▼ META▼ QQQ▼ SPY▼ NVDAtech stocksoil pricesbonds