Thursday 5 November 2026
Top stories today:
Data center stocks tumble on AI slowdown fears after Dem. sweep
OpenAIās Images 2.6 debuts with animated GIF support
Meta acquires AI coding agent startup Conductor
Sequoia raises ~$10B, shuts accelerator, London office
Qualcomm Q4 FY26 revenue -8% YoY, net income +140%
0. Data & Calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing todayās newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Data center stocks tumble on AI slowdown fears after Democratic sweep
CoreWeave closed -10%, Nebius -7%, and IREN -11% on Wed. following Democratsā sweeping midterm victory.
NVIDIA also -3% and Marvell -7%, even as the Nasdaq 100 +1%.
Building data centers will be āharderā after the midterms, Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said, but perhaps less than feared.
OpenAI pledged to avoid NDAs in data center deals and cut power use following Democratsā midterm wins.
Meanwhile, Big Tech rallied on bets of slower AI spending under Democrats
Trumpās WLFI price -6% in the last 24 hours
Trump Media & Technology Group -25% and $TRUMP memecoin -19%.
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3. OpenAIās Images 2.6 debuts with 50% faster generation, animated GIF support
Images 2.6 Sunburst and Flare are 1.9x and 1.6x faster than Images 2.5, respectively, per Image Arena:
Images 2.6 is rolling out to all ChatGPT and Codex users, while Sunburst and Flare are available via OpenAIās API.
4B images/week now generated across ChatGPT and the API, up from 3B in Sep.
Images 2.6 Sunburst ranked second on the Text-to-Image Arena leaderboard
Separately, OpenAI said 948 Linux flaws validated and patched using its upcoming cyber model at $1.2M in API costs.
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5. Meta acquires AI coding agent startup Conductor, team to join Superintelligence Labs
āSomething newā coming for customers by āearly next year,ā Conductor founder and CEO Charlie Holtz teased.
Last summer, Conductor launched its core product, while the startup was founded in 2024.
Its cloud service will shut down on Nov. 20, with user cloud data deletion beginning afterward.
Meta had lagged in AI coding tools before releasing Muse Code.
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7. Sequoia raises ~$10B, shuts accelerator and London office in restructuring
āSeveral people will be leaving Sequoiaā as it closes its London office, the firm said.
The restructuring follows a ~20-year expansionary phase.
Arc was Sequoiaās answer to Y Combinator and it was launched in 2022.
2023: Sequoia spun off its China and India/Southeast Asia arms.
