MPC Morning Call 26th February 2026 – Tech stocks lead the market higher as Agentic AI concerns turn into “Buy the Dip”
The AI trade had renewed enthusiasm overnight as Nvidia earnings smashed expectations and the “SaaS-pocolypse” sell of on Agentic AI concerns started to attract value investors in certain subsectors
WATCH ON YOUTUBE Due to increasing inaccurate AI generated financial markets news, MPC is endeavouring to verify all sources in the morning call. MPC Morning Call 26th February 2026 – Tech stocks lead the market higher as Agentic AI concerns turn into “Buy the Dip” The AI trade had renewed enthusiasm overnight as Nvidia earnings smashed expectations and the “SaaS-pocolypse” sell of on Agentic AI concerns started to attract value investors in certain subsectors General market moves US equities pushed higher as traders crowded back into mega-cap tech ahead of Nvidia’s results, with the S&P 500 up around 0.8% and the Nasdaq 100 up about 1.4% as bond gains stalled and the 10‑year Treasury yield edged up to roughly 4.05%. The dollar softened modestly while Bitcoin briefly topped 69,000, and software stocks rebounded, with a major tech‑software ETF jumping about 3.1% as investors rotated back into AI‑linked names. Trump State of the Union President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to defend his tariff agenda after a Supreme Court ruling struck down his earlier “reciprocal” levies, saying everything was “working well” despite lingering uncertainty over the fate of the new temporary 10% global duties. He also stressed efforts to curb inflation and highlighted ongoing peace talks with Iran, but polling shows persistent voter dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy and immigration, with only about 39% approving his overall performance and 58% disapproving of his immigration stance. Agentic AI threat to SaaS AI‑linked disruption fears remain elevated after a report from little‑known Citrini Research sketched out aggressive scenarios where agentic AI displaces large swathes of white‑collar work and pressures traditional software and services businesses. Those concerns were amplified by news that a hacker abused Anthropic’s Claude chatbot to exfiltrate roughly 150GB of sensitive Mexican government data, underscoring security and governance risks around powerful AI systems. Still, Citadel Securities pushed back on the “AI wrecking ball” narrative, pointing to stable daily AI‑for‑work adoption, rising software‑engineer job postings and arguing that AI is following a classic S‑curve productivity shock that should be disinflationary and ultimately growth‑enhancing rather than labour‑destroying. Nvidia earnings Nvidia once again cleared a very high bar, delivering a clean top‑ and bottom‑line beat with fiscal Q4 revenue of about 68.1bn versus roughly 65.6bn expected and EPS of 1.62 versus consensus near 1.52. Year‑on‑year revenue growth accelerated to about 73% in Q4, and full‑year FY26 sales rose 65% to around 215.9bn, reinforcing Nvidia’s status as the key hardware beneficiary of the AI build‑out. Crucially, the company guided FY27 Q1 revenue to about 78bn (plus or minus 2%), well ahead of the roughly 72.8bn the street was looking for, helping to soothe bubble fears and signalling that hyperscale AI capex remains firmly on track. Management stressed that customers are “racing to invest in AI compute” and that upgrading the global installed base of legacy infrastructure will take years, even as competition intensifies and investors debate how long Nvidia can sustain current margins. Earnings news (Salesforce) Salesforce reported a mixed set of numbers, with Q4 FY26 revenue up about 2% to 11.2bn in line with expectations, current RPO growing 13% in constant currency to 35.1bn, and non‑GAAP EPS of 3.81 comfortably ahead of consensus by roughly 0.76. However, the FY27 revenue outlook of around 46bn, implying 10–11% growth (including about 3 percentage points from Informatica), and operating margin guidance of about 20.9% failed to excite, sending the stock lower in extended trade as investors weighed solid profitability against a still‑uncertain demand backdrop and mounting questions over AI‑driven disruption to Commodities, Energy & FX ASX Overnight: SPI 9140 (+0.66%) Corporate news Sigma Healthcare reported a 23 per cent jump in half year net profit o $379 million, allowing the company to pay an interim fully franked dividend of 2¢. IDP Education has raised its full-year earnings forecast to between $120 million and $130 million, despite seeing its half-year net profit tumble 65 per cent to $23.5 million. Super Retail Group has posted a rise in sales, but profits tumbled 20 per cent in the first half from more discounting in auto and sports. Toll road group Atlas Arteria has posted 39 per cent decline in full-year net profit to $181.1 million.
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