Is the AI boom cracking? The nasdaq just had its worst month in over a year a few weeks ago the nasdaq and S&P 500 were at record highs. then october happened alphabet fell more than 12% in a single day after earnings, about half a trillion dollars gone. intel and amazon dropped too, even with their AI revenue growing what spooked people is the spending. alphabet is holding its capex at $195 to $205 billion this year and that’s draining its cash. these companies are building the computers years before those computers earn enough to pay for them it’s spreading beyond the US. china’s STAR50 index of AI and chip companies was down about 40% in under four months, around $480 billion, as of earlier this week the bulls aren’t panicking. wall street veteran ed yardeni says a slowdown could make the boom last longer. the weakest balance sheets are taking the hit, like the neoclouds whose borrowing costs jumped so the question now is who can afford to wait for AI to pay off