Artificial intelligence stocks face a pivotal week as Broadcom Inc’s fiscal third-quarter earnings, due September 2 after the close, coincide with the August nonfarm payrolls report. BakerAvenue chief strategist King Lip has called Broadcom a “top pick” ahead of the report, arguing AI infrastructure spending is shifting from initial model training toward large-scale inference workloads. Consensus estimates project Broadcom will report $29.43 billion in revenue and $3.24 in earnings per share, representing year-over-year growth of 84.5% and 91.7%, respectively.
Lip told CNBC that the tech trade is moving from “show me the model” to “show me the money.” He sees Broadcom’s custom application-specific integrated circuits as structurally advantaged for repetitive inference tasks, even as Nvidia remains dominant in model training. Broadcom shares are down more than 25% from their year-to-date high and are trading below major moving averages, while Wall Street maintains a Buy rating with an average price target of $534. The company also pays a 0.71% dividend yield. Lip highlighted data center power constraints and community moratoria as operational hurdles but said Broadcom’s high-efficiency networking silicon and custom ASICs position it well for hyperscaler demand.
The macroeconomic side may be equally important. The August payrolls report is viewed as the week’s central catalyst after July’s weak labour print. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has signaled a firm anti-inflation posture, keeping pressure on rate expectations. A balanced payrolls reading could support tech and risk-asset valuations, while a surprise in either direction could alter interest-rate expectations and trigger portfolio shifts. Strong AI infrastructure orders plus steady jobs data would support the AI trade, whereas disappointing hardware demand and persistent inflation risks could force investors to reduce exposure. For crypto markets, the macro and risk-sentiment backdrop may have an indirect effect, but no specific digital assets are directly tied to these developments.
