9AM HOUR: After the Sell-off: Marvell and Lumentum CEOs on Massive Deal, Anthropic's Amended IPO Filing, Kimberly-Clark CEO 11/2/26

Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer, and David Faber opened November’s first trading day looking for stability after the Nasdaq fell 3% Friday, its worst day since June. The week included midterm elections, jobs data, Apple and Palantir earnings, and major semiconductor news. Brent crude was below $107, with diplomatic hopes involving Iran helping oil, while tech attempted to rebound. The anchors also flagged Binance reopening withdrawals after a multibillion-dollar breach and noted that Marvell’s proposed Lumentum acquisition would be one of the largest technology deals ever.

Cramer argued that Marvell and Lumentum executives would show that their businesses were “on fire,” rejecting the idea that Friday’s technology decline disproved the data-center thesis. Faber countered that investors had begun rewarding companies that spend within their means, as Microsoft did, and punishing companies that may not reach positive free cash flow soon. They cited Oracle’s planned $10 billion equity issuance, alongside $10 billion of debt, despite its projection of more than $30 billion in fiscal-2029 free cash flow. Cramer suggested Oracle could be raising money quickly to get ahead of Anthropic.

The anchors said Anthropic’s third-quarter reported revenue was $16.8 billion, roughly equal to its first two quarters combined, but the September figure was not broken out and the October number remained blank in the amended S-1. Cramer said an Anthropic delay or failure to access capital could become an “Achilles heel” for the AI market, while Faber called an IPO delay a significant negative surprise because access to capital is increasingly differentiating companies. They also discussed skepticism around OpenAI’s fundraising and whether negative research commentary was reflecting changing sentiment rather than new operating facts.

Cramer called Intel’s decline historic and said he would wait for AMD CEO Lisa Su’s Wednesday report before buying more, expecting commentary on Intel’s market-share losses as well as PC weakness. The anchors noted that AMD had outperformed Intel dramatically over the previous six months. They compared the week’s large declines in Intel, ServiceNow, and IBM with technology collapses involving Lucent, Nortel, and AOL in October 2000, which Faber said explained why investors were taking action. Microsoft remained the “lone survivor” on free cash flow, generating $18 billion while Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet were negative.

The hosts examined a Washington Post report about a possible Starlink agreement with Boost Mobile, emphasizing that it did not necessarily mean EchoStar was selling the business and that Charlie Ergen’s tax concerns could affect any transaction. T-Mobile and other telecom shares were lower premarket. Deutsche Bank moved tech back to overweight, while Morgan Stanley strategist Mike Wilson turned more constructive after previously warning of 7,100 before a rally. The hosts said midterm results, possible Democratic control, data-center opposition in Texas and Ohio, capital constraints, and the timing of Anthropic’s filing were creating unusually strong cross-currents.

Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said the all-stock transaction combines Marvell’s AI-connectivity semiconductors with Lumentum’s optical technology to create a new category leader. Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston said his company had just produced some of its best results, including $350 million of incremental quarterly growth and a record 53% gross margin, but believed semiconductor and optical technologies had to converge quickly. Murphy rejected the idea that Lumentum’s lasers were merely a temporary supply-constrained commodity, calling its indium-phosphide and proprietary semiconductor technology highly differentiated. He said optical demand should remain strong as systems connect hundreds or thousands of GPUs.

Murphy said Marvell expected to close in the first half of 2028 because of the global regulatory process, including China, but expressed confidence based on prior acquisitions: Cavium took seven or eight months and Inphi about five months. He described the businesses as complementary with no overlap. Hurlston said the deal was designed for long-term value, not the immediate share-price reaction, and cited revenue and cost synergies. Asked about NVIDIA, Murphy said both companies had strategic investments from NVIDIA and that combining two key suppliers would strengthen the NVIDIA ecosystem. Hurlston described the target product as co-packaged or near-packaged optics combining both companies’ technologies.

After the opening bell, Leslie Picker estimated Anthropic’s third-quarter revenue at about $17 billion, up 1,127% year over year, with roughly $2.5 billion of adjusted operating income and $2.9 billion of adjusted net income. The amended filing raised future compute and infrastructure commitments from about $820 billion to approximately $900 billion, spread over one to 20 years with both cancelable and non-cancelable components. Kate Rooney added that adjusted operating income rose from $2.2 billion to $2.5 billion, but adjusted operating margin fell from 19% to 15% as compute and infrastructure expense rose from about $5.5 billion to nearly $10 billion. October revenue was still unavailable.

Kimberly-Clark CEO Mike Hsu said the completed Kenvue acquisition combines Kimberly-Clark’s consumer-packaged-goods execution with Kenvue’s science and engineering. He highlighted Kimberly-Clark’s go-to-market, digital, advertising, and innovation capabilities, arguing Kenvue’s categories remain underdeveloped and offer room for growth. Hsu acknowledged a difficult prior quarter, including a false social-media crisis in China that caused the company’s diaper business there to decline 70%; Chinese authorities later declared the products safe. On Tylenol litigation and autism claims, he said outside scientific and legal advisers support the safety evidence and noted Tylenol consumption was up double digits in the current quarter. He also said the company expects earnings accretion by year two, leverage near 2.0, and continued dividend-aristocrat status.

Cramer said interest rates remained the market’s most important driver: a break in inflation and lower rates would make investors more willing to own stocks. The 10-year yield fell below 4.9%, its lowest level since September 9, while oil’s decline supported airlines, cruise lines, and Marriott, which reached an all-time high. Amazon rebounded nearly 4% after investors focused on its roughly $28 billion of net interest income, and SpaceX shares recovered after falling below their IPO price. In the closing recommendation, Cramer endorsed CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks, citing cybersecurity demand after the Binance breach and a new CrowdStrike-CoreWeave partnership. Apple and Palantir earnings were scheduled after the bell.