💰️ $537B In AI Bills. Yikes.

The best sector of 2026 isn't tech. It's energy, up around 40% this year while most investors chased chip stocks. Get the #1 energy stock free, and we'll text you the name. Show Me the Energy Stock.

Michael Burry just counted $537 billion in AI bills.

That's his tally of the computing and equipment commitments tied to Anthropic's IPO filing. More than half a trillion dollars. On chips and servers.

The "Big Short" guy is not impressed.

Burry read Anthropic's $ANT ( 0.0% ) prospectus and came away even more worried about the AI boom.

Writing on his Substack, Cassandra Unchained, he said the industry's tangle of deals leaves it "catastrophically vulnerable" to even a mild slowdown or market dip.

His verdict on the filing? Nothing in it changed his view. He walked in bearish and walked out bearish.

He also warned the $537B figure could still grow, since more agreements may be on the way.

Revenue growth slowed to 46% quarter-on-quarter, down from 144%.

Meanwhile, computing costs jumped 78%.

That's like your salary going up 46% while your rent goes up 78%. You're earning more, but the landlord is winning.

To be fair, 46% growth in a single quarter is still blistering. Most companies would throw a party for 46% in a year.

Burry cares about direction, though. And the direction is down.

Here's the bit that matters for everyone else.

Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 4.25% ) and Alphabet $GOOG ( ▼ 12.29% ) are both Anthropic investors and its computing suppliers. Microsoft is another major infrastructure partner.

So the same giants putting money into Anthropic are also selling it the compute it spends that money on. The cash goes round in a circle.

Burry's argument: if AI growth cools, that circle could spin the wrong way fast, and the pain spreads across every partner involved.

He's also watching a sneakier threat. More efficient AI models need less computing power, which could cut demand and squeeze pricing.

Great news for users. Less great for anyone who pre-ordered half a trillion dollars of hardware.

If you own Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, or a broad index fund, you already have a slice of this AI web, whether you planned to or not.

That doesn't make Burry right. Bears can be early, and early can look a lot like wrong for a long time.

The thing to watch is simple: does revenue keep pace with spending? If costs keep outrunning sales, expect a lot more people to start sounding like Burry.

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Another Big Short guy just tapped the brakes on AI.

Steve Eisman, the investor who called 2008, told CNBC the AI trade is nearing a "tipping point."

And he's already moved his money.

Eisman has "shorted against the box" a whole bunch of his positions.

He's betting against stocks he already owns. If they drop, the short pays. If they rise, the shares pay. The swings mostly cancel out.

His words: risk is now "much, much, much lower." Three "much"s. The man means it.

But he's not net short. Seatbelt on, foot still on the pedal.

His main worry is the frontier AI model makers.

Eisman thinks they're using fear about their own tech to build a regulatory moat, and that the scary-AI chatter helps cover up faltering fundamentals.

Exhibit A: Anthropic's recent S-1 filing, which he called "extremely negative." Two things bugged him:

In normal-person terms: every $1 spent on equipment used to bring in $2.08. Now it brings in $1.70.

That's 38 cents per dollar gone in one quarter. Flywheels aren't supposed to spin backwards.

Then there's Google. "I think the numbers from Google scared people," Eisman said.

Alphabet stock fell after reporting a pullback in its core ad business, as AI queries replace good old-fashioned search.

AI eating search turns out to be bad news for the people selling search ads. Who could have guessed?

Because tech is too tangled up with the whole stock market.

Bet against AI and you're accidentally betting against half your portfolio's neighbours too. Even Eisman won't swing that hard.

His parting shot: "so much of the market is on the other side, and it's still reading tea leaves."

What it means for you: if you own an index fund, you own the AI trade, whether you signed up for it or not.

Eisman's play is a reminder that there's ground between all-in and all-out. Plenty of pros cut risk without hitting the sell button.

Amazon just made way more profit than anyone expected. The stock fell 8.7% anyway.

That's after hours, on top of a 4.2% drop during the regular session. Rough Thursday.

So what spooked everyone? One number: free cash flow swung to a $42.4 billion outflow over the last 12 months.

AWS revenue hit $46.0B, up 39% year-over-year, beating the $45.7B estimate.

And it's speeding up. Growth went from 28% in Q1, to 37% in Q2, to 39% now. Fastest pace in nearly five years.

AWS also carried the profits: $17.8B of Amazon's $28.1B operating income. That's nearly two-thirds of the profit from under a quarter of the revenue.

Total operating income smashed the $26.1B consensus and cleared the company's own guidance of $22.5B to $26.5B.

Andy Jassy is feeling himself. He says AWS is at a $184B revenue run rate, with growth projected above 40% in both 2027 and 2028.

He also floated that Amazon could own two trillion-dollar revenue businesses within 5 to 10 years. Nobody has ever had one.

The AI demand looks real too. One analyst flagged 7x growth in inference spending across Fortune 500 customers.

Retail came in just short almost everywhere:

Subscriptions were the bright spot at $14.1B vs $13.8B expected. Prime keeps Prime-ing.

Q4 revenue guidance of $240B to $247B lands just under the $244.2B consensus at the midpoint. Operating income guidance of $28.5B to $33.5B looks healthier.

Tiny misses. But when you're priced for perfection, "almost" gets punished.

Operating cash flow jumped 29% to $168.3B. Lovely.

Then Amazon spent it. Purchases of property and equipment rose $94.8B year-over-year, mostly feeding the AI build-out.

Result: $42.4B of free cash out the door over 12 months. That's about $116 million a day.

And Amazon still expects roughly $220B in capex for 2026. That's around $600 million every single day on chips, servers and buildings.

Investors need clearer proof those billions will pay off.

Wall Street now asks every AI spender the same question: when does the money come back?

AWS accelerating is the strongest answer Amazon has given yet. The market wants to see that answer in the cash flow too.

If you hold AMZN directly, or through funds like $XLY ( ▲ 0.75% ), $VCR ( ▲ 0.77% ) or $ONLN ( ▲ 0.95% ), this is the trade you own: a growth engine running hot, paid for with a mountain of capex.

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