Tech stocks hit by sell-off wave, Anthropic's $1.5 trillion IPO faces valuation and timing test.

Anthropic’s planned IPO is under pressure after a two-day tech selloff erased $2.5 trillion in market value from Nasdaq Composite constituents, with three major prospective investors saying the $1.5 trillion target valuation may be hard to achieve and one pegging fair value closer to $1 trillion. Some investors are also questioning whether the roadshow can begin as scheduled in the week of Nov. 9, as Anthropic seeks to raise up to $100 billion and beat SpaceX’s June record for the largest IPO. The selloff was triggered by midterm election results that strengthened AI-policy skeptics and state-level data-center moratoriums, hitting AI infrastructure names such as CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN, whose market values have halved over the past month. Investors are awaiting Anthropic’s October revenue figures, left blank in its latest S-1 amendment, and are weighing a lower valuation, smaller raise or delay; Anthropic held $146.6 billion in cash as of Sept. 30. The outcome matters because Anthropic is deeply tied to Google, Amazon and Nvidia, and a stalled or discounted listing could further weigh on AI sentiment and broad tech valuations. OpenAI’s latest round has raised only about $11 billion of a $30 billion target at a $1.25 trillion valuation, reinforcing signs that AI fundraising is cooling.