Nasdaq rises 0.28% at the open as Anthropic files for IPO
Key Facts
All three U.S. indexes opened higher on Monday, October 26, with the Dow Jones rising 0.20% to 52,320.45 points, the S&P 500 gaining 0.21% to 7,639.7 points, and the Nasdaq Composite advancing 0.28% to 26,026.865 points. The move came at the start of a busy week of corporate earnings announcements and a Federal Reserve decision on interest rates. Reuters said Anthropic’s IPO filing had drawn investors’ attention ahead of these catalysts. In morning trading, Reuters reported that the S&P 500 was up 0.5% and that U.S. stock futures received a brief boost after the filing was published. An investor told Reuters that the offering’s outcome would indicate whether the market was prepared to continue funding capital spending on AI development.
Anthropic filed its IPO paperwork on Monday and said in its filing that it intends to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. The filing sets up the San Francisco-based company for a potential Wall Street debut next month, according to the Associated Press, though the final offering date has not been confirmed. The company said the number of Class A shares being offered and the price range had not yet been determined. It also said the registration statement submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had not become effective. The filing therefore does not yet include details establishing the offering’s size or price.
The financial figures in the IPO document highlight the scale of the challenge accompanying expansion in the sector: Anthropic recorded a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026, compared with a loss of $13 billion in the same period a year earlier, according to the Associated Press. The agency also said reports indicated the offering could raise as much as $100 billion, while the final amount remains uncertain. Investors link the deal’s importance to AI companies’ ability to continue the capital spending needed for development. An investor told Reuters that the offering’s outcome would be “a significant indicator of sentiment toward continued support for capital spending on AI development.” The equation comes in a market where volatility has weakened the autumn IPO calendar, while higher borrowing costs have increased investor concerns about the debt-financed AI investment boom, Reuters reported.
The Nasdaq’s opening gain follows its decline from 26,702.86 points at the close on October 21 to 25,955.34 points at the close on October 23, according to EL7 data. The start-of-session rise alone does not establish that the index has recovered its earlier losses, as the available reading concerns the opening move. Reuters also linked market performance to the week’s earnings and the Fed decision, while the Associated Press described the broad expectation as leaving the federal funds rate unchanged at Wednesday’s meeting. The committee cut the target range on September 16 to 3.75%–4.00%, a quarter of a percentage point. The Federal Open Market Committee meeting is scheduled for October 27 and 28, with the Fed chair holding a news conference on October 28.
Attention is also turning this week to results from major technology companies, with Alphabet and Microsoft reporting quarterly results on Wednesday, followed by Amazon on Thursday, according to the Associated Press. The agency said about one-third of S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report results during the week that began on October 26. The market calendar thus combines assessments of corporate earnings and the Fed decision with a test of investor interest in Anthropic’s offering. The company said the offering price and share count had not been decided, and the registration statement had not become effective. The Fed statement is scheduled to be released after the October 27 and 28 meeting, followed by the news conference on the second day.