State Street is reiterating its bullish stance on the artificial intelligence trade despite the Nasdaq’s worst week since April.
Chief Business Officer Anna Paglia said momentum stocks still have legs because investors are reluctant to step away from the growth story that’s driven gains all year.
“How would you not want to participate in the growth of AI technology? Everybody has been waiting for the cycle to change from growth to value. I don’t think it’s happening just yet because of the momentum,” Paglia told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” earlier this week. “I don’t think the rebalancing trade is going to happen until we see a signal from the market indicating a slowdown in these big trends.”
Paglia, who has spent 25 years in the exchange-traded funds industry, sees a higher likelihood that the space will cool off early next year.
“There will be much more focus about the diversification,” she said.
Her firm manages several ETFs with exposure to the technology sector, including the SPDR NYSE Technology ETF, which has gained 38% so far this year as of Friday’s close.
The fund, however, pulled back more than 4% over the past week as investors took profits in AI-linked names. The fund’s second top holding as of Friday’s close is Palantir Technologies, according to State Street’s website. Its stock tumbled more than 11% this week after the company’s earnings report on Monday.
Despite the decline, Paglia reaffirmed her bullish tech view in a statement to CNBC later in the week.
Meanwhile, Todd Rosenbluth suggests a rotation is already starting to grip the market. He points to a renewed appetite for health-care stocks.
“The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund… which has been out of favor for much of the year, started a return to favor in October,” the firm’s head of research said in the same interview. “Health care tends to be a more defensive sector, so we’re watching to see if people continue to gravitate towards that as a way of diversifying away from some of those sectors like technology.”
The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund, which has been underperforming technology sector this year, is up 5% since Oct. 1. It was also the second-best performing S&P 500 group this week.
It was a terrible start to November on Wall Street. The tech-heavy Nasdaq sank just over 3% in its worst weekly performance since early April. The S & P 500 fell 1.6% for the week. Both stock measures broke three-week winning streaks.This week’s market decline, which followed a strong October, can be chalked up to two reasons. First, investors grew concerned about the eye-watering valuations of stocks tied to artificial intelligence. Case in point: Nvidia lost its $5 trillion market cap designation in a weekly loss of 7%. The weakness in Nvidia was exacerbated by the realization that China would not be opening back up in a meaningful way for the powerhouse of AI chips. While management has not included China sales in its outlook for months, many investors still thought it could happen. Still, we maintain our long-held “own it, don’t trade” thesis on Nvidia. .SPX .IXIC 5D mountain S & P 500 and Nasdaq weekly performance Second, there were emerging signs that the government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, was starting to harm the economy. Job cuts last month reached their highest levels for any October in 22 years, according to Thursday’s reading from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. A day later, the latest monthly consumer sentiment survey from the University of Michigan registered nearly its worst reading ever. These reports from private organizations have taken on added importance since the shutdown, which started on Oct. 1 and has delayed most government economic data. During this week of market turmoil, we executed three trades. On Monday, we added to our Starbucks position. The stock has taken a beating with other restaurant names on fears of a weakening consumer. In this case, we think the decline is overblown. After all, the turnaround story under CEO Brian Niccol remains strong. “With shares trading back to their ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs lows in early April, we see this recent weakness as an opportunity to slowly scoop up more,” Jeff Marks, the Investing Club’s director of portfolio analysis, wrote in a trade alert. “Niccol has embarked on an ambitious plan to bring back the coffeehouse atmosphere and fix its stores through a new operating and staffing model called Green Apron Service . It’s taken a few quarters, but the turn has finally started.” The Club also snapped up more Boeing stock Tuesday. Shares dropped significantly after the aircraft maker’s earnings report last week, caused by a larger-than-expected charge on its 777X program. Yes, the quarter was a frustrating setback. But the decline presented a great opportunity for long-term investors like us. “The turnaround under Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg is still progressing nicely, driven by better execution on its 737 program,” Marks wrote in a trade alert. “With production moving from 38 airplanes per month to 42 — then eventually 47 and 52 under FAA guidance in the future — Boeing’s ability to make and deliver more planes will lead to strong free cash flow generation in the years ahead.” The market’s pullback Thursday gave us a chance to buy more GE Vernova stock. Shares have tumbled as AI-linked names have been scrutinized for their valuations. That’s because GE Vernova is one of the world’s largest producers of gas-fired turbines, which are used to create electricity and electrification products found in data centers. The company’s sales heavily benefit from the insatiable demand for more energy due to the frantic AI infrastructure race. “We are using this downturn to buy more shares since we still have a positive long-term outlook on the need for increased electricity investment,” Marks wrote in another trade alert. Eli Lilly made headlines this week. President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a GLP-1 pricing deal with Lilly and rival drugmaker Novo Nordisk that would lower prices for certain weight-loss treatments in exchange for coverage in Medicare and Medicaid programs. This was huge news for Lilly because it can expand access to Zepbound, increasing the blockbuster weight-loss drug’s total addressable market. Eli Lilly is also behind GLP-1 Mounjaro, but it was not included in the deal. That’s not the only piece of good news for Lilly. Management announced positive mid-stage trial results for its experimental amylin obesity drug. The once-a-week shot called eloralintide was shown to help patients shed pounds while maintaining muscle mass. Shares of Eli Lilly were up 7% for the week. this week. Quarterly earnings and spinoff news were also in focus. Eaton delivered a mixed third-quarter report Tuesday morning, which beat on adjusted earnings per share (EPS) but missed on revenue and organic sales. Although the headline results were uneven, the Club still found bright spots in the release. Overall segment profit and profit margin, for example, beat expectations and reached new quarterly records. DuPont posted a beat on the top and bottom line Thursday morning — less than a week after the spinoff of Qnity Electronics. Shares of DuPont slipped right after because of noise around quarterly numbers due to the split and divestiture of its Aramids business. Still, the underlying fundamentals for the new DuPont look strong, and the stock was our biggest winner on the week, up 16.5% to nearly $40. The Club downgraded shares to our 2 rating . We also adjusted our price target to $44. Solstice Advanced Materials, which recently split from Club name Honeywell , reported earnings on Thursday with no major surprises. There was a 7% topline growth, which was provided when Honeywell posted its own results just two weeks ago. Plus, it was all fairly consistent with what was said at an investor day last month. Texas Roadhouse shared a mixed earnings report Thursday night, posting better-than-expected comps despite concerns of softening consumer spending. However, higher beef prices caused the steakhouse chain to raise its commodity inflation outlook, which has weighed on Texas Roadhouse’s profitability for some time. We’re not giving up on the Club stock yet. Wall Street heard from Qnity on Thursday night, too. Not earnings, we learned about those numbers when DuPont reported, but management delivered a business update after the close, which made us hopeful of the company’s position to keep growing from secular trends like AI in the years ahead. The Club issued a buy-equivalent 1 rating on the stock and a price target of $110. Qnity stock has been volatile and closed Friday just over $92. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Neurodiverse professionals may see unique benefits from artificial intelligence tools and agents, research suggests. With AI agent creation booming in 2025, people with conditions like ADHD, autism, dyslexia and more report a more level playing field in the workplace thanks to generative AI.
A recent study from the UK’s Department for Business and Trade found that neurodiverse workers were 25% more satisfied with AI assistants and were more likely to recommend the tool than neurotypical respondents.
“Standing up and walking around during a meeting means that I’m not taking notes, but now AI can come in and synthesize the entire meeting into a transcript and pick out the top-level themes,” said Tara DeZao, senior director of product marketing at enterprise low-code platform provider Pega. DeZao, who was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, has combination-type ADHD, which includes both inattentive symptoms (time management and executive function issues) and hyperactive symptoms (increased movement).
“I’ve white-knuckled my way through the business world,” DeZao said. “But these tools help so much.”
AI tools in the workplace run the gamut and can have hyper-specific use cases, but solutions like note takers, schedule assistants and in-house communication support are common. Generative AI happens to be particularly adept at skills like communication, time management and executive functioning, creating a built-in benefit for neurodiverse workers who’ve previously had to find ways to fit in among a work culture not built with them in mind.
Because of the skills that neurodiverse individuals can bring to the workplace — hyperfocus, creativity, empathy and niche expertise, just to name a few — some research suggests that organizations prioritizing inclusivity in this space generate nearly one-fifth higher revenue.
AI ethics and neurodiverse workers
“Investing in ethical guardrails, like those that protect and aid neurodivergent workers, is not just the right thing to do,” said Kristi Boyd, an AI specialist with the SAS data ethics practice. “It’s a smart way to make good on your organization’s AI investments.”
Boyd referred to an SAS study which found that companies investing the most in AI governance and guardrails were 1.6 times more likely to see at least double ROI on their AI investments. But Boyd highlighted three risks that companies should be aware of when implementing AI tools with neurodiverse and other individuals in mind: competing needs, unconscious bias and inappropriate disclosure.
“Different neurodiverse conditions may have conflicting needs,” Boyd said. For example, while people with dyslexia may benefit from document readers, people with bipolar disorder or other mental health neurodivergences may benefit from AI-supported scheduling to make the most of productive periods. “By acknowledging these tensions upfront, organizations can create layered accommodations or offer choice-based frameworks that balance competing needs while promoting equity and inclusion,” she explained.
Regarding AI’s unconscious biases, algorithms can (and have been) unintentionally taught to associate neurodivergence with danger, disease or negativity, as outlined in Duke University research. And even today, neurodiversity can still be met with workplace discrimination, making it important for companies to provide safe ways to use these tools without having to unwillingly publicize any individual worker diagnosis.
‘Like somebody turned on the light’
As businesses take accountability for the impact of AI tools in the workplace, Boyd says it’s important to remember to include diverse voices at all stages, implement regular audits and establish safe ways for employees to anonymously report issues.
The work to make AI deployment more equitable, including for neurodivergent people, is just getting started. The nonprofit Humane Intelligence, which focuses on deploying AI for social good, released in early October its Bias Bounty Challenge, where participants can identify biases with the goal of building “more inclusive communication platforms — especially for users with cognitive differences, sensory sensitivities or alternative communication styles.”
For example, emotion AI (when AI identifies human emotions) can help people with difficulty identifying emotions make sense of their meeting partners on video conferencing platforms like Zoom. Still, this technology requires careful attention to bias by ensuring AI agents recognize diverse communication patterns fairly and accurately, rather than embedding harmful assumptions.
DeZao said her ADHD diagnosis felt like “somebody turned on the light in a very, very dark room.”
“One of the most difficult pieces of our hyper-connected, fast world is that we’re all expected to multitask. With my form of ADHD, it’s almost impossible to multitask,” she said.
DeZao says one of AI’s most helpful features is its ability to receive instructions and do its work while the human employee can remain focused on the task at hand. “If I’m working on something and then a new request comes in over Slack or Teams, it just completely knocks me off my thought process,” she said. “Being able to take that request and then outsource it real quick and have it worked on while I continue to work [on my original task] has been a godsend.”
Over 95% of international data and voice call traffic travels through nearly a million miles of underwater communication cables.
These cables carry government communications, financial transactions, email, video calls and streaming around the world.
The first commercial telecommunication subsea cable was used for telegraphs and was laid across the English Channel between Dover, England and Calais, France in 1850.
The technology then evolved to coaxial cables that carried telephone conversations, and most recently, fiber optics that ferry data and the internet as we know it.
“About ten years ago, we saw the advent of another big category, which is the webscale players and the likes of Meta, Google, Amazon, etc., who represent now probably 50% of the overall market,” said Paul Gabla, chief sales officer at Alcatel Submarine Networks.
Alcatel is the world’s largest subsea cable manufacturer and installer, according to industry trade magazine Submarine Telecoms Forum.
Demand for subsea cables is increasing as tech giants race to develop computation-intensive artificial intelligence models and connect their growing networks of data centers.
Investment into new subsea cable projects is expected to reach around $13 billion between 2025-2027, almost twice the amount that was invested between 2022 and 2024, according to telecommunications data provider firm TeleGeography.
A map of the world’s undersea communication cables.
CNBC | Jason Reginato
Big Tech, big cables
“AI is increasing the need that we have for subsea infrastructure,” said Alex Aime, vice president of network investments at Meta. “Oftentimes when people think about AI, they think about data centers, they think about compute, they think about data. But the reality is, without the connectivity that connects those data centers, what you have are really expensive warehouses.”
In February, the company announced Project Waterworth, a 50,000km (31,000-mile) cable that will connect five continents, making it the world’s longest subsea cable project.
Meta will be the sole owner of Waterworth, which the company says will be a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar project.
Amazon also recently announced its first wholly-owned subsea cable project called Fastnet.
Fastnet will connect Maryland’s eastern shore to County Cork, Ireland, and capacity will exceed 320 terabits per second, which is equivalent to streaming 12.5 million HD movies simultaneously, according to Amazon.
“Subsea is really essential for AWS and for any connectivity internationally across oceans,” Matt Rehder, Amazon Web Services vice president of core networking, told CNBC in an interview about Amazon’s subsea cable investments. “Without subsea you’d have to rely on satellite connectivity, which can work. But satellite has higher latency, higher costs, and you just can’t get enough capacity or throughput to what our customers and the internet in general needs.”
A ship belonging to Alcatel Submarine Networks deploys a plow to install subsea telecommunications cables.
Alcatel Submarine Networks
Google is another large player, having invested in over 30 subsea cables.
One of the company’s latest projects is Sol, which will connect the U.S., Bermuda, the Azores and Spain.
Microsoft has also invested in the infrastructure.
“You’ve seen this huge growth in submarine cables over the past 20 years. And this is driven by just a voracious demand for data,” says Matthew Mooney, director of global issues at cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.
Cut cables
Disruptions due to cable damage can be quite significant, particularly in areas served by few internet connections.
“If you cut a cable, you can cut off multiple countries from internet access, and that includes financial transactions, banking, e-commerce and basic communications,” said Erin Murphy, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonprofit national security research organization.
That very thing happened to Tonga, an island nation east of Australia.
In 2022, debris from an underwater volcanic eruption severed the island’s only subsea communication cable, cutting the island off from the rest of the world.
In September, cuts to subsea cables in the Red Sea caused disruptions to Microsoft’s Azure cloud service. The company was able to re-route traffic, but users in Asia and the Middle East still faced increased latency problems and degraded performance.
Experts have said that the majority of subsea cable damage is accidental, usually due to fishing activity or a ship accidentally dropping its anchor on a cable. But lately, these cables are becoming the suspected targets of sabotage.
A subsea cable being manufactured at Alcatel Submarine Networks factory in Calais, France.
CNBC
“When you have so many vessels in international waters that are highly trafficked by lots of commercial vessels or fishing vessels, the likelihood of accidents is fairly high,” Murphy said. “But if you’re a hostile actor, you know that as well. So if you’re sending out the so-called Russian ghost fleet, or if you have a Chinese fishing vessel and a cable is accidentally cut, you could just say, ‘Oh, well, it was an accident.’ But it could be intentional. So it’s really hard to discern sometimes when an act of damage is actually intentional or accidental.”
Mooney and Recorded Future have been tracking some of these cases of suspected sabotage.
“I would say that we have seen a significant uptick in what we would consider intentional damages,” Mooney said. “In 2024 and 2025, [we] saw a notable increase in incidents that occurred in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan. And so it is difficult to be able to determine with 100% validity that these are intentional. However, the fact patterns that emerge from these events does give you cause to be suspicious that they could all be considered accidental.”
Mooney said the increase in suspected sabotage has corresponded to increased tensions between Russia and Ukraine and China and Taiwan.
Despite there being a lack of concrete evidence of subsea cable sabotage, governments are taking the threat seriously.
In January, NATO launched the “Baltic Sentry” following several incidents of cable cuts in the Baltic Sea. The operation involves deploying drones, aircraft and subsea and surface vessels to safeguard the subsea infrastructure in the region.
“As a result, I don’t believe we’ve seen any instances of cable severing since late January 2025, in the Baltic Sea,” Mooney said.
A picture taken on February 4, 2025 shows a Helicopter 15 (HKP15) (L) on the flight deck of patrol ship HMS Carlskrona (P04) on open water near Karlskrona, Sweden, as part of the NATO Baltic Sea patrol mission, the Baltic Sentry, aimed to secure critical underwater infrastructure. The patrol ship HMS Carlskrona (P04) set off from the naval port in Karlskrona on February 4, 2025 to become part of NATO’s Baltic Sentry operation as one of several Swedish ships that are part of Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1). This is the first time the ship has hoisted the NATO flag on board. The purpose of NATO’s Baltic Sentry operation is to demonstrate presence and secure critical underwater infrastructure. (Photo by Johan NILSSON / TT NEWS AGENCY / AFP) / Sweden OUT (Photo by JOHAN NILSSON/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images)
Johan Nilsson | Afp | Getty Images
U.S.-China tension
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission, which is responsible for granting licenses to anyone wishing to install or operate subsea cables connecting to the U.S., has introduced tighter rules on foreign firms building this infrastructure, citing security concerns.
“One area we’ve been particularly focused on are threats that come from the Chinese Communist Party as well as from Russia,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr told CNBC. “So we’re taking actions right now to make it difficult or effectively prohibiting the ability to connect undersea cables directly from the U.S. to a foreign adversary nation.”
Carr said the FCC is also taking steps to make sure the hardware itself isn’t compromised, not allowing Huawei, ZTE or other questionable “spy gear” to be used in undersea cables.
In July, three House Republicans sent a letter to the CEOs of Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft asking if the companies have used PRC-affiliated cable maintenance providers.
In response to CNBC’s question about the letter, Meta’s Aime said, “We do not work with any Chinese providers of cable systems on systems that we’ve announced, and we are in full compliance with U.S. policy regulations around partners in the ecosystem and the supply chain.”
Amazon also told CNBC it does not work with Chinese companies.
Microsoft and Google did not return CNBC’s request for comment on the letter.
To understand how subsea cables work, CNBC visited Alcatel Submarine Networks subsea cable manufacturing facilities in Calais, France and Greenwich, England. We also spoke to government officials and tech giants to find out why subsea cables are crucial to keeping us connected and what we can do to protect this critical infrastructure.
