👀 Tailor-made

SCOREBOARD

Thursday close. S&P down 0.3%, with Alphabet down 12.6%. On the week: Nvidia +0.7%, S&P +0.7%, Nasdaq +0.7%. Prices via CNBC.

ON WATCH

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% on Thursday. This week, Senators Ron Wyden and Ed Markey sent Mark Zuckerberg a letter about Meta's Ray-Ban glasses, the ones with a camera in the frame.

They say Meta spotted the risks to bystanders before launch in 2021 and still sold a product "tailor-made" for invading people's privacy. They cite reports of men secretly filming women they were harassing.

The letter goes after the AI too. Meta's own disclosures say imagery processed by the glasses' AI features may be kept and used to train its systems, with help from human reviewers.

Earlier this year, Swedish reporters found that contractors in Kenya labelling that footage were seeing sexual content. Meta ended the contract.

The senators want to know whether Meta tested for voyeurism, how it stops people tampering with the recording light, and whether the glasses blur faces the way Facebook and Instagram do. They've asked for answers before Thanksgiving.

It's also the device Meta is betting on. Its Reality Labs unit, which makes the glasses, lost $4.13 billion last quarter.

Gizmodo's report carried no reply from Meta. In fairness, Meta has said footage is filtered before any contractor sees it, and the frame has a light that shows when the camera's on.

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THE MACHINE

Amazon spent $77.3 billion on data centres, chips and equipment in the three months to September. Wall Street expected about $58.7 billion, and a year earlier the figure was $35.1 billion.

Free cash flow, the money left after the bills and the building, came out at minus $42.4 billion over the past twelve months. A year earlier it was plus $14.8 billion.

Long-term debt has nearly tripled since December, to about $173 billion, according to the Motley Fool's read of the results. Andy Jassy told analysts Amazon plans to "spend more meaningfully in 2027."

The shares fell about 7% before Friday's open, after sales of $201.9 billion came in a touch under forecasts. The online shop grew more slowly than a year ago, partly because Prime Day moved earlier this year.

The bull case is the cloud, where AWS sales grew 39% to $46 billion, the fastest in nearly five years, at its highest profit margin ever. Jassy expects growth above 40% in both 2027 and 2028.

SOMEONE SMART SAID

Eisman is the investor Steve Carell played in The Big Short. Shorting against the box means betting against shares you already own, so a fall hurts less without selling them. He told CNBC's Squawk Box on Thursday that the AI trade is near a "tipping point".

His sharper charge is about the labs. He thinks the frontier AI companies are using fear of their own technology to win rules that shut out cheaper rivals, and to cover up slowing numbers.

That said, he isn't betting on a fall overall. He told CNBC he's not "net short any", and admits "so much of the market is on the other side."

THE CHART

The Nasdaq, where most big tech companies trade, fell 1.4% on Thursday, and its futures slid further before Friday's open. Alphabet alone fell 12.6% after its results.

The orange diamond is March 2000, the dot-com peak. From there the index fell 78%, and it took fifteen years to get back.

Say it back simply: today's Nasdaq is about five times that old peak.

Set against that, this chart doesn't look like 2000. Even after this week, the index is about 10% higher than a year ago and within 3% of May's record month-end, and Microsoft's sales grew 19% last quarter with its free cash flow still positive.

HEADS UP

ON THE HORIZON

MEERKAT ON YOUTUBE

Nvidia Is Paying Its Own Customers To Buy Its Chips! Nvidia hands money to companies that then buy its chips, stands behind the data centres they rent, and books the lot as record demand. Meerkat follows whose money actually moves, and why the loop can never be allowed to stop. Watch on Meerkat Explains.

THE BURROW

Quick vote. Two senators say Meta's camera glasses invade people's privacy. What should change?

Trivia. Google's 2013 camera glasses drew such a backlash that the people who wore them in public got a rude nickname. What was it? Answer's at the bottom of the email. No peeking.

ALSO WORTH YOUR INBOX

Meerkat's crypto cousin: Crypto Nutshell, the day's crypto news in five minutes.

HOW DID WE DO?

One tap, and Meerkat listens. How did today's issue land? Hit a button, and add a line if you want to tell Meerkat why.

That's October done. Back Monday at 6:30, the day Apple reports.

The friend who films everything for Instagram should read this one. Forward them this.

Meerkat is not a financial adviser, and nothing here is advice. Meerkat is a small animal with a whiteboard and a cardboard box bought on credit. Please do not sue Meerkat.

TRIVIA ANSWER

"Glassholes." Some bars and cafés banned Google Glass, and Google stopped selling the first consumer version in early 2015.