What Anthropic's IPO Filing Reveals About Its Financial Health

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in 10 minutes. My name is Zaid Admani and today is Tuesday, October 27th. In today's episode, we'll dig into Anthropic's massive S1 document and why I was surprised at the financial health of the company. We'll also talk about why JetBlue stock is bouncing back even after reporting another loss and what's going wrong at Whirlpool. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Halloween candy is getting so expensive. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stocks kicked off this busy week in the green. The S&P 500 gained 0.7% on Monday, while the Nasdaq jumped by 0.8%. Tech was the best performing sector on the day that Anthropic officially filed their S1 paperwork with the SEC. The AI lab plans to go public week of November 16th and could raise $100 billion or more at a valuation between $1.5 and $2 trillion. We'll talk more about the anthropic IPO in a bit. Now, the other big story hanging over the market this week is the Fed meeting, which kicks off today. Everyone expects the Fed to hold off on hiking rates and keeping them steady at 3.75 to 4%. So we'll see what Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has to say after the meeting tomorrow and if he hints at a potential rate hike at the December meeting. Tomorrow, we also have earnings from Microsoft and Google and then Amazon and Intel report on Thursday. So it's about to get really busy. If you're new here, you picked a great time to start listening to the podcast. Make sure you're subscribed if you haven't already and tune in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. And we're talking Anthropic. On Monday, Anthropic officially filed their S-1, which is the paperwork a company submits to the SEC when they want to go public. The S-1 gives investors a look under the hood at the company's finances, their business, and the risks the company faces. Anthropic's S-1 was over 300 pages, and there is a lot to talk about. Let's start with the basics first. Anthropic plans to list on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol ANT, and the IPO is expected to happen the week before Thanksgiving. Now, Anthropic didn't disclose the official dollar target in the filing, But sources say they're looking to raise roughly $100 billion, which would top SpaceX's record IPO of $86.2 billion back in June. And they're targeting a valuation between $1.4 and $2 trillion. Now, digging into the revenue, the growth here is absolutely ridiculous. Anthropic did $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of this year. That is up 14x from the $1.2 billion they did in the first half of 2025. Now, there's a lot of headlines making the rounds saying that Anthropic lost $80 billion in the first half of the year, but that number needs some context. About $72 billion of that loss came from an accounting adjustment tied to financial instruments. The company didn't actually burn through $80 billion in cash or anything like that. In fact, the number that I want to focus on is Anthropic's operating income, which tells you how their core business is doing. According to the S-1, Anthropic reported an operating loss of $639 million for the first half of this year. That loss is a lot smaller than the roughly $2.1 billion in operating loss they reported during the same period last year. And what also stood out to me is that Anthropic is sitting on more than $112 billion in cash. Now, here's the thing, Anthropic is going to need all that cash because they've committed to spending a massive amount of money on Compute. The S-1 says that Anthropic has a $114 billion deal with Google, $110 billion deal with Amazon, and about a $45 billion deal with Microsoft. And these agreements can't be canceled. Anthropic also has a $120 billion deal with SpaceX, but apparently that deal has some cancellation rights built in. Now, these spending commitments on Compute is spread over the next five to seven years. So the question for investors will be, can Anthropic's revenues keep growing at a pace that allows them to cover these compute commitments. So I'm really curious to see what the market's reaction will be when the IPO goes live in November. It seems like Anthropic is lowering expectations a bit by targeting a $1.5 trillion valuation instead of the $2 trillion we kept hearing about before. I do think there's a chance the stock pops on the first day of trading. I mean, the company is experiencing explosive growth and improving their operating income. Not to mention they have over $100 billion in cash already, and they're going to raise another $100 billion from this IPO. So Anthropic seems to be in a surprisingly good spot here. The key question will be though, can they keep growing faster than their spending commitments? Let me know in the comments on what you guys think after seeing these numbers. Are you more bullish on Anthropic? Would you even consider investing in the company at the IPO? Drop your thoughts in the comments on Spotify and YouTube. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Today, JetBlue stock is flying higher this morning in reaction to their earnings report. Now, honestly, the earnings numbers weren't great. JetBlue lost $257 million last quarter, which is actually a bigger loss than a year ago. A big reason for that was fuel prices. JetBlue's fuel bill jumped 61% to $868 million for the quarter. But the reason the stock is up today is that investors were expecting things to be worse. JetBlue stock actually closed at all-time lows on Monday at $2.37. But the stock is up around 10% today in reaction to the earnings report. I got to say, though, it's been a pretty brutal few years for the airline. JetBlue hasn't made an annual profit since 2019, and investors have been worried about their debt and whether their turnaround plan is actually working. But there was some encouraging news in the earnings report, like the average fare rose about 19% for the quarter, and the company said that stronger travel demand allowed them to pass the higher fuel costs to customers. On top of that, management reaffirmed their outlook to turn an operating profit next year. So the stock is getting a relief rally today. We'll see how long that lasts. JetBlue still needs to show that they can turn these higher revenues into a sustained profit. I got to say though, they should have been allowed to merge with Spirit Airlines a few years ago. The government blocked that merger and now Spirit is bankrupt and JetBlue seems to be barely holding on. Now on the flip side shares of Whirlpool are down this morning after reporting disappointing earnings revenues in the third quarter fell by almost nine percent from a year ago to 3.68 billion dollars that was well below the 3.93 billion dollars that analysts expected and the company posted a surprising loss for the quarter and i think the bigger problem here is the company's outlook they now expect to lose about $1.30 per share for the full year just last quarter they were forecasting a profit of $2.50 to $3 per share. So that's a huge change in guidance. A big problem for the company is the frozen housing market. So when people buy a home, they usually buy new appliances, but high mortgage rates are keeping home sales down. So fewer people are shopping for fridges and washers. On top of that, raw material and fuel costs keep climbing for the company. Now, Whirlpool is dealing with a higher cost by raising prices by about 7% and also cutting their own costs. but their profit margins were still lower than a year ago. Plus, I feel like raising prices right now isn't going to help them sell more stuff in this market. Whirlpool stock is down around 5% this morning at the time of this recording. And if you zoom out, the stock is down over 60% this year and on pace for their worst year ever. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Halloween is on Saturday and the scariest thing this year might be the candy prices. The average 100-piece bag of Halloween candy now costs about $17, which is up 15% from last year and up 71% since 2021. Now, the main reason for the higher prices is cocoa. Bad weather in West Africa, which supplies 70% of the world's chocolate, sent cocoa prices to record highs last year. And then just as prices started coming down this spring, the war in Iran disrupted fertilizer supplies heading to West Africa, causing prices to go back up again. So because of the higher chocolate prices, people are switching to cheaper gummy candies like Sour Patch Kids, Skittles, and Nerds. Personally, I don't hate that. Now, the New York Times reported that some people are going to be handing out pretzels, and one teacher in Illinois is planning to pass out packets of instant ramen. Not sure how I feel about that. But hey, shout out to all the houses that continue to pass out full-size candy bars. Not many houses are doing it anymore. I don't blame you. It's a very serious investment at this point. But hey, if you are, you are an absolute legend in the neighborhood. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. By the way, I'm still recovering from the flu, feeling a little bit better today. Still got the body aches and the chills and the fever, but feeling better than yesterday. And hopefully by tomorrow, I'll be back to 100%. Thank you to everyone that reached out for the well wishes and of course thank you to everyone for listening watching and commenting shout out to Mike and V for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow