$130B in Court | Inference Turns to Cash | Credit Lags the Shift

The earnings printed strong. The tape did not chase.

Futures are pointing to a slightly softer open. Dow futures off modestly. S&P and Nasdaq futures hovering just below flat. After two solid up days, the tape is taking a breath.

So here are the five threads shaping this open:

This is not panic. It’s refinement.

The tension this morning isn’t about earnings. It’s about expectations.

Nvidia’s numbers say spending hasn’t cracked. That supports capex, suppliers, and grid-related names. If you own infrastructure, you have evidence in hand.

Salesforce’s reaction says the market wants proof of AI monetization, not just positioning. That means selectivity within software continues.

Copper’s steady climb suggests the buildout phase is ongoing. Physical demand supports the digital story.

Do you own conversion now, or promises later?

For decades, this corner of the market was largely inaccessible to everyday investors. Then a recent executive order quietly changed the rules. What was once off-limits is now available in a much more accessible way, and it’s already drawing attention.

See what changed.

You know it’s a strange week when court filings start trading like bonds.

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs, hedge funds didn’t wait for clarity. 

They started buying rights to potential refunds. 

Before the ruling, claims changed hands around 20 cents on the dollar. Within days, bids jumped to roughly 40.

That’s not a legal footnote. That’s price discovery.

Claims Desk

For many companies, waiting ties up capital for years. So they sell the claim at a discount and move on. Investors cover legal fees and assume the delay. If refunds arrive in full, the upside is clear.

But here’s the part that lingers.

When litigation turns into inventory, friction is no longer temporary.

Capital is acting as if refunds will come, just not soon. That means billions sit in legal limbo instead of funding expansion or hiring.

This isn’t chaos. It’s pricing.

A refund claim is now tradable paper.

And the discount is the market’s verdict on time.

It started as a policy fight. It’s turning into a cash race.

After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs, companies didn’t celebrate. They hired lawyers. 

At least 1,800 firms have filed suits seeking refunds. More are lining up. Over 300,000 importers were touched by the levies.

That’s a balance sheet event of scale.

Refund Rush

Tariffs collected the cash. The Court voided the authority. Now the Court of International Trade controls the clock.

The White House has hinted refunds could include interest. Then suggested this could drag on for years. That ambiguity matters.

Large firms can fund litigation and wait. Smaller importers may not. Some are filing “belt-and-suspenders” cases just to secure standing. Others hope Customs moves without a fight.

This isn’t just about trade.

It’s about who controls $130 billion in corporate cash, and when it gets released.

If the queue clears fast, liquidity hits at once. If it drags, working capital stays tight and smaller importers feel it first.

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For months, the whisper was bubble. Jensen Huang answered with numbers.

Nvidia posted $68 billion in quarterly revenue. Profit climbed 94% to $43 billion. Gross margins held at 75%. And guidance for next quarter landed well above estimates at $78 billion.

That’s not deceleration. That’s scale.

Huang didn’t lean on training. He leaned on inference. 

He said this is where customers make money. Agents using tools. Tokens turning into revenue.

Layer Shift

If inference drives recurring demand, capital spending isn’t a one-off event. It becomes operating leverage for customers. That matters for Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet.

And on software? Huang was direct. Agents won’t replace ServiceNow or SAP. They’ll use them. That’s a different conversation.

AI just moved from capacity build to revenue extraction.

Training built capacity. Inference builds cash flow.

Hardware strength tells you the checks are still being written. Now software and credit markets must show that those checks produce durable returns.

Here’s the twist. The AI race just walked into the utility commission.

Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Oracle and OpenAI will meet President Trump to sign a pledge: 

if they build new AI data centers, they supply their own power. No passing the bill to households. No quiet strain on local grids.

That’s not symbolic. That’s political pressure made practical.

Communities have pushed back as electricity bills rise. Governors have campaigned on it. The White House doesn’t want AI blamed for higher monthly statements. The rule is simple: secure the power before you scale the compute.

Power Shift

This changes incentives. If Microsoft or Amazon must secure generation up front, capital allocation shifts. Power contracts become strategic assets. Site selection narrows to regions with transmission capacity.

And that feeds directly into competition. The firm that locks in reliable energy first scales faster.

AI is no longer just a software or silicon story. It’s a grid story.

Control the power, control the rollout.

Infrastructure bottlenecks are becoming the next moat. And Washington just made that explicit.

Legendary investor William O’Neil said it best:

“The biggest source of demand in stocks is institutional investors.”

When institutions move, prices follow.

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Equities flinched first. Credit barely blinked. That gap is the story.

UBS says leveraged loans and private credit haven’t fully adjusted to AI disruption risk. 

Loan issuance is down 30% year to date. Spreads are only 35–40 basis points wider. That divergence rarely holds.

Software stocks have been sold hard. In credit, tech names trade within half a point of each other. High disruption risk. Low disruption risk. Barely any separation.

That’s not differentiation. That’s inertia.

Spread Drift

Historically, issuance drops before spreads widen. If fewer deals clear, lenders demand more yield. That’s the sequence.

And here’s the pressure point. If AI accelerates disruption, defaults won’t show up in headlines first. They show up in recovery math.

Equity may be halfway through its reset. Credit likely isn’t.

If defaults tick higher in leveraged loans and private credit, spreads move next.

When that happens, financing costs rise across the ecosystem. And that feeds back into valuations.

Hardware strength is intact. Nvidia proved that. But the muted reaction tells you optimism is already embedded in many portfolios.

Software remains a sorting exercise. Salesforce’s pullback shows that investors are no longer paying in advance for future dominance. They want visible returns.

Copper’s run reinforces that infrastructure spending is not theoretical. Data centers, grids, electrification, those projects require metal, not narratives.

The landscape is not fragile. It is demanding.

Demanding proof. Demanding cash flow. Pricing discipline.

That is not instability. It is repricing.