Today's read
AI and investors. The week's AI news was about how the build-out is paid for. Microsoft said customer demand still exceeds its supply, but some outside capacity it rents arrived late. Alphabet kept its 2026 capital spending range at $195 to $205 billion and said 2027 will rise significantly; Meta narrowed its range to $135 to $145 billion. Lenders are now financing GPU servers directly. Then technology led a broad selloff on Thursday, and options now price big-tech volatility at 146% of the broad market's, inside the site's watch range.
Business owners and home owners. The selloff has not reached hiring or borrowing. New jobless claims averaged 196,750 a week over the four weeks to 24 October, and continuing claims fell to 1,701,000. Junk-bond spreads widened slightly late in the week but still read calm. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.94% on Thursday, down from 5.05% two days earlier, which matters for mortgage and business-loan rates that follow it. Electricity keeps getting dearer for businesses: commercial prices were 4.3% higher in August than a year before.
Cyber security and coding. CISA added 35 vulnerabilities to its known-exploited catalog in the 30 days to 30 October, and 17,061 new CVEs were published in the 30 days to today; a known-exploited listing is the clearest public sign that a flaw is used in attacks. The Hacker News traced ransomware affiliates using an AI-driven intrusion framework, and Ars Technica reported that a Google privacy-policy update loosens the line between Gmail and Photos data and ad personalization. For anyone running their own sites or home servers, Let's Encrypt is moving to 64-day certificates, so renewal has to be automatic. Cloudflare described cutting more than 100 TB of memory from its proxy with better data structures, and Fly.io opened an MCP server that lets AI agents move work from a sandbox to production. What would change this read: credit spreads widening toward the watch line, or jobless claims turning up. Updated 31 October: added this week's security and coding reading.
Takeaways
- AI spending is still rising, but its financing and timing are shifting.
- Markets fell; jobs and credit stayed steady.
- Patch what CISA lists as known exploited first.
Sources: Full note: AI build-out roundup, 15-29 October (primary) · Cboe Global Markets, VXN and VIX via FRED (VXNCLS, VIXCLS); ratio computed by signals.casa (primary) · US Treasury daily par yield curve (primary) · CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (primary) · Site signals: sources and method for every gauge (primary) · The Hacker News: exposed infrastructure behind ransomware affiliate intrusions (secondary) · Ars Technica: Google privacy policy and Gmail data for ads (secondary) · InfoQ: Cloudflare Pingora hashing optimization (secondary) · Fly.io: MCP server for AI agents (primary) · XDA: preparing for Let's Encrypt 64-day certificates (secondary)