Inside ASML’s Earnings Beat, Netflix’s Podcasting Move & the Largest Data Center Acquisition Ever

Ed Elson is joined by Andrew Gardiner, Head of European Technology Equity Research at Citi, to discuss takeaways from ASML’s earnings. Then Ed and Scott Galloway discuss Netflix’s move to offer podcasts. Finally, Ed dives into a $40 billion deal to buy one of the world’s biggest data center operators. Check out our latest Prof G Markets newsletter Order "The Algebra of Wealth" out now Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Follow Prof G Markets on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram and X Follow Scott on Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:29Ed Elson?

  Today's number? 1.8 billion. That is how many dollars are expected to be spent on weddings next year because of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Nearly every wedding vendor says the Swift wedding will lift sales, and roughly half are now offering Swift-themed services. The most popular service? How to marry your cat.

• 1:51Speaker 06

  Money markets. If money is evil, then that building is hell.

• 2:02Ed Elson?

  Welcome to Prof G Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is October 16th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The S and P 500 and the Nasdaq closed higher after another volatile trading session. The Dow was flat. Treasury yields rose as investors monitored tensions between the US and China. Oil prices hit a five month low on those tensions and a pending supply surplus. And finally, the dollar declined as gold struck another record.

• 2:32Ed Elson?

  Okay, what else is happening? ASML, the Dutch lithography company, reported third quarter earnings that largely beat expectations. Net bookings surged 105% from a year ago, and the company said 2026 sales are unlikely to fall below 2025 levels. However, the CEO warned that business in China will be, quote, significantly lower. Still, shares rose more than 3% after the report. As a reminder, ASML is not a chip company. ASML makes the machines that make the chips that are then used to make these AI models, but they are still very much at the center of the AI infrastructure trade, especially because as of now, there are essentially no companies that have the tech capabilities to do what

• 3:16Ed Elson?

  ASML does. All right. For more on what these earnings mean for ASML and for AI, we have Andrew Gardner, Head of European Technology Equity Research at Citi. Andrew, thank you for joining us on Prof G Markets.

• 3:30Speaker 07

  Thank you for having me.

• 3:32Ed Elson?

  So let's just walk through the ASML earnings here. What were your main takeaways? What did we see this quarter?

• 3:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'd say there's two fairly key, high level takeaways from the results. You know, one around the bookings themselves that they took in the quarter. And then secondly, what that is meaning, what the bookings and indeed the the interactions they're having with the customers is meaning for the outlook into 2026. So firstly, on the bookings, 5.4 billion euros of bookings in the quarter. That's a healthy number, not dramatic, but fairly healthy. And what you're seeing within that mix is that both memory customers, the likes of Samsung, SK Hynix in Korea, Micron in the US, as well as the logic customers, TSMC, Samsung as well,

• 4:22Speaker 07

  are ordering. So there's a good breadth to the order intake from ASML, particularly so on the memory side, which I think is both a cyclical statement as well as a structural one. And then in terms of, you know, what that means looking into 2026, this is a company that's got very long lead times, 12 months for some of the most advanced tools. And so their visibility is steadily improving into next year. And after a rather sort of tough few quarters, particularly with second quarter where they had to walk away from the expectation of growing in 2026 because of the uncertainty out there in the broader market. They've now said some of that uncertainty has been answered during the last three months.

• 5:05Speaker 07

  And so now they're willing to say, will at least be flat, if not grow in 2026. That's something that certainly the market took positively this morning here in Europe and why you've seen the shares trade well.

• 5:17Ed Elson?

  Tell us a little bit about what that uncertainty was and the sense in which it has been answered over the past few months.

• 5:25Speaker 07

  Yeah, so there was both, I think, your macro top down uncertainty, your tariffs. You're still very much on the radar for the entire chip industry. And you're back in July, particularly for ASML, who were the, they're always the first to report. Yeah, that that uncertainty was still quite apparent in terms of the broader environment. But also, you know, there were customer specific issues. And that really began around this time last year with both Intel and Samsung on the foundry side, where both have had fairly well reported challenges in terms of ramping new technology, getting new customers on board.

• 6:10Speaker 07

  And while not all of that has been answered in the last quarter, some of it has. And you've seen Samsung announce new deals, particularly for the fab in Texas with Tesla, with Apple, you've seen investment coming into Intel from a number of places. And so some of that uncertainty is ebbing away a little bit. Not everything's been solved, but definitely a little bit better than where we were three months ago.

• 6:36Ed Elson?

  Yeah, it certainly seems that ASML strikes a very cautious tone,

• 6:42Ed Elson?

  more so than I would say a lot of other companies, perhaps that's the European and then versus the American. But, you know, as you mentioned, the last time when we looked at the earnings, there was this concern over macro and social, concern about tariffs. And one of the things that we were sort of struck by is, you know, the extent to which that dragged on ASML but didn't seem to drag on a lot of other AI stocks. I'm wondering if you noticed that as well, if that caught your attention.

• 7:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, there's been a definite disconnect, I think. And there's a few reasons for it. I would say, I mean, you talk about ASML's perhaps cautious tone. That isn't always the case, but certainly over the last year, because of the challenges, both top down and bottoms ups, I was just talking about. They've been in the unfortunate position of having to cut some of their longer term targets. And really, it's the first time in the last 15 years since they started setting medium and long term targets coming out of the global financial crisis that they've had to do that. And so I think that has naturally caused them to be a bit more cautious in recent quarters.

• 7:54Ed Elson?

  Yeah.

• 7:55Speaker 07

  The other thing in terms of the disconnect between, you know, some of the excitement that you see elsewhere within the AI supply chain and what you see in equipment, I think is quite telling. It was something that we as a global team within Citi have been talking about the last couple of months. It did feel like coming through the second quarter that you had all of the hyperscalers beating and raising in terms of capital spending. Wasn't yet filtering into the chip names, but then clearly over the last month or so, you've seen myriad deals announced, Nvidia, AMD, et cetera. And so that it's sort of come down one layer.

• 8:36Speaker 07

  And yet still, when you're getting down into the actual supply chain where these chips are going to be built, you're not yet seeing the orders. You know, so Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, walking around, talking about hundreds of billions of dollars worth of chips. And yet there's ASML today reporting five billion euros worth of orders. As I said at the start, it's healthy, but it's not, it's not record levels by any means. So I, and they got a lot of questions on this, the management team during the conference call this afternoon. And, you know, visibility is improving. They're clearly having those conversations through the supply chain with their customers and the customers' customers, but it's not yet materializing orders. Something that I do think has to come in the next few quarters.

• 9:20Speaker 07

  Otherwise, you know, the, the, the fantastic numbers in terms of chips that are being talked about, the, the number of data centers, the lead times in this industry mean that it's going to be harder and harder to achieve those on time if we don't start to see the orders flow through.

• 9:36Ed Elson?

  The other concern that was mentioned on, on the call was China. The CEO mentioned that there was a, perhaps going to be a dip in Chinese demand and therefore Chinese revenue. Can you speak to what we learned about ASML and the relationship with China?

• 9:52Speaker 07

  Sure. China has been a strong revenue driver for them for the last few years. It's true for the entire semiconductor equipment space as China has been building out their capacity. And there has also been a regular refrain from the equipment industry, ASML included, at least over the last year, that the Chinese revenue would start to decline, in some cases quite meaningfully. And when we started 2025, ASML was saying they expected between 20 and 25% of revenue to come from China this year. As we came through the first couple of quarters, they were doing a bit better than that, twenty seven percent through the first half. And so they were saying, look, probably a bit above twenty five. And then in the quarter, they just reported this morning as

• 10:37Speaker 07

  forty two percent of their hardware sales in the quarter. So it really stepped up materially. And so, you know, I think it's probably going to be north of thirty percent by the time fourth quarter is said and done. So still a very strong year from China. And therefore, they're again saying, look, we don't think that it is a sustainable level, probably comes back into the low to mid twenty percent range over the long term. So they're sticking to that message, even while in the near term, they're continuing to ship more than they had anticipated. So the demand is there, it's certainly not slowing down.

• 11:13Ed Elson?

  Again, I'm so struck by the tone of ASML. I compare it to the very hyped up AI stocks and Tesla. I mean, I'm just looking at the net bookings doubling and seeing all of this growth in China. And yet, the tone is, again, we're worried about this, it could come down, don't get too excited, which is very interesting, especially when you look at the stock, which is up, you know, thirty percent over the past couple of months.

• 11:39Speaker 07

  Yeah, indeed. It's had a dramatic turn. You know, I'd say in talking to investors in the July and August timeframe after second quarter results, you, people would engage, but you were struggling to get commitment. You know, there was a sense that either numbers needed to come lower for those who were most bearish at the time for twenty twenty six, or even if they believed the numbers, they just, they wanted their hand held a little bit and they wanted to speak to management, wanted to understand what was going on. There was just a lack of conviction. And all of that changed very rapidly, even by semiconductor standards during the month of September. And I think it was just, the

• 12:21Speaker 07

  news flow was just building day after day after day in terms of these deals that were being talked about in the AI space. And also The memory market, you know, pricing in DRAM really had started to turn positively. And the combination of those things, you know, finally gave the market that conviction. It's like, okay, the industry data points are telling me 2026 shouldn't get any worse than is modeled. And so I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, as a market, I'm going to feel more comfortable in buying this stock and indeed this group. And that's essentially what ASML have confirmed this morning, right? 2026 has been reset to an achievable level and we can now look forward to growth in 2027 and beyond.

• 13:03Ed Elson?

  All right, Andrew Gardner, Head of European Technology Equity Research at Citi. We really appreciate your time. Thank you.

• 13:10Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 13:13Ed Elson?

  So, strong quarter for ASML. And if you are a regular listener to the show, then perhaps you saw this coming. Perhaps you even own the stock because, yes, we did predict this back in July when we last discussed ASML. We said the stock was on sale. We said that ASML was a buy.

• 13:35Ed Elson?

  So our conclusion here is that we might have some dislocation on our hands. And as a result, we think this is probably a buying opportunity. Our thesis is that ASML just got put up for sale. As of market close on Wednesday, July 16th, yesterday, it is 8% off on ASML. And for no other reason, other than the CEO is buying into the tariff drama while the rest of America isn't. And that to us spells buying opportunity. That was July 17th. The stock was trading at around $740 per share at the time. Today it is trading at over $1,000 per share. So our prediction was correct. Indeed, we did see Tako.

• 14:19Ed Elson?

  The tariffs did not impact the earnings and the stock in the past three months has risen 35%. One of the best performing stocks in Q3. And it is also now the most valuable public company in Europe. $390 billion market cap. It is now ahead of LVMH, which is at $350 billion and also ahead of Novo Nordisk at $250 billion. So. Good call there. At this point, we think the company is pretty much fairly valued. In other words, we don't see the kind of upside that we saw three months ago. But at the same time, this is still a very strong company, strong moats, very well positioned in AI, and it has not been subject to the same hype that we have seen with many of these

• 15:04Ed Elson?

  other AI companies. So not the same position where we were at three months ago, in some hold. After the break, Netflix is officially getting into podcasting. If you're enjoying the show, give Prof G Markets a follow.

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• 16:59Ed Elson?

  We're back with Prof G Markets. It's official. Video podcasts are coming to Netflix. Netflix has announced that it is partnering with Spotify and The Ringer to offer 16 podcast series on its platform starting in early 2026. The initial lineup will include the Bill Simmons podcast, Serial Killers, and The Ringer's flagship NFL and NBA shows. Full video episodes will be removed from YouTube, and they will be available exclusively on Spotify and on Netflix. Netflix hinted about bringing podcasts onto the platform. A few months ago, we actually discussed what that might look like back in April.

• 17:39Scott Galloway?

  Netflix will overnight be able to take, they'll own a bunch of podcasts. They might start early by just being a distribution platform, learning about it, making some ad revenue, and then they will go vertical and either launch their own or buy some. And they will make, I would bet within 24 to 36 months, three of the 10 biggest podcasts in the world are owned by Netflix.

• 18:01Ed Elson?

  And now it appears that they are indeed going ahead with it. We will see podcasts on Netflix. Let's give Scott Galloway a call. Let's see what he makes of this move.

• 18:15Ed Elson?

  Scott, good to see you.

• 18:16Speaker 12

  Good to be seeing you, Ed. What's going on?

• 18:18Ed Elson?

  Not much. I see you are outside the pub. Are we interrupting something?

• 18:22Speaker 12

  So, Ed, I'm here at a classic British pub, which means I have American tourists in town. It's like when you live in New York, the only time you go to Broadway is when tourists or your mom's in town and they force you to go to Broadway. I would much rather be at a douchey LA-like Members Club, but I've been dragged to one of these British pubs with my LA friends.

• 18:41Ed Elson?

  Here we are. We want to get your reaction to this new move from Netflix. They are getting into podcasting officially. We talked about this a few months ago, how that might be happening. Now we know for sure Netflix is getting into podcasting. Your reaction is what that might mean for the podcasting industry?

• 18:59Speaker 12

  Well, we predicted this. What this is, is it's squarely an indication that Netflix recognizes that their biggest competitor isn't Hulu or Disney Plus. Their biggest competitor is YouTube. And YouTube is now the largest distribution platform for podcasts. 25% of the people who listen to this podcast will watch it on a TV streaming it off of YouTube. So they recognize that they need to be in that game. This is, and in addition, podcasts are the fastest growing ad-supported medium in the world. Alphabet grew, I think, thirteen percent. I think Meta was sixteen percent. Podcast ad revenue was up eighteen percent. Now granted, that's up on a much smaller base.

• 19:42Speaker 12

  But there really isn't a medium that's growing faster than podcasts. So them, this just makes all the sense in the world. I think we predicted this about six months ago. I'm shocked it took, it took this long.

• 19:53Ed Elson?

  Yeah. One thing is kind of interesting. These are exclusive deals. So basically, when, when the podcast gets added to Netflix, and Spotify, by the way, it's partnership. The episode is taken off of YouTube. So you have to kind of choose. Any reactions to the way they're structuring that?

• 20:10Speaker 12

  Well, again, above, you know, see above, they see YouTube as their competitor. So Netflix is flexing their muscles and say, well, that's about forty empty bottles. Again, it's right there. So, look, Netflix is flexing their muscles. They're like, we're, we could be and should be the largest distribution platform for podcasts, or, or could be. We can put you in front of a hundred and fifty million eyeballs on the home screen. The home screen for Netflix is, you know, maybe with the exception of the home screen on Instagram or the Google query box, is the most valuable real estate in the world. And so they've said, look, if you want to be, if you want to have a shot at being a featured podcast,

• 20:55Speaker 12

  you, you can't be on YouTube. So, you know, I, I get it. What they've also done though is the content, they're very strategic. They're doing sports, they're doing crime, they want to stay out of politics. I'm shocked they didn't go into business. Um, I called Ted Sarandos about six months ago and said, why aren't you in podcasting? And he's a, you know, he's an incredibly smart, you know, kind of reeks of class kind of guy. And he said, well, we're thinking about it, we're looking at it. But this, Netflix could be a kingmaker here. Those podcasts are going to be overnight, some of the biggest pods. In the world. And in addition, what they're doing here is what Netflix does, what their strategy is,

• 21:40Speaker 12

  is their, I call it the allied World War II strategy, and that is, the Allies didn't have, the Germans had better tanks, better officers, better guns, better planes, but what they had, what they didn't have was gasoline. We had 38 gallons of gasoline for every one gallon the Allies had, and the Allies basically just overwhelmed the Axis power with gasoline. And Amazon and Netflix basically overwhelmed the competition with capital. And in addition to just more gross tonnage of capital, Netflix produces more for less than anyone in the world in terms of quality of content. And the way they've done that is through these arbitrages. The first was an arbitrage through geography, right? They're essentially producing stuff, over 50% of their budget,

• 22:25Speaker 12

  content budget, was spent overseas because they can make a film for 70% of what it costs in America and Spain, and you know, maybe less than that in a place like Seoul. And in a different, this is the next arbitrage, and that is a medium arbitrage. So if you look at Prop G, and we've been open about this, you know, our kind of top line is about 15 million, conservatively 20 people, that's 750 grand per employee. It looks like a TD, Jimmy Kimmel, or Stephen Colbert, 60 million, 200 employees, 300,000 per employee. Comcast, CNBC, all those guys, 200,000 to 300,000 dollars per employee. So effectively, what's happening is they're arbitraging

• 23:10Speaker 12

  the medium. And what's happening is that essentially podcasts are becoming TV, and TV less slowly is becoming podcasts. And that is, podcasts are essentially TV with a strong audio overlay that are 70 or 80% of the production quality, if they do a good job, of television at 10 to 20% of the price. So Netflix is going to be featuring TV shows that were traditionally known as podcasts that cost 10 or 20% as a similar

• 23:42Speaker 12

  There's a similar TV show, but already have a built in audience. I think this, I think this raises the stakes. It's going to increase the production value of podcasts, but essentially podcasts are the new television.

• 23:54Ed Elson?

  Will profite markets be on Netflix in the next few years?

• 23:57Speaker 12

  No, but what we'll likely do in all seriousness is we'll likely find distribution. We will find distribution on television. We will take elements of our podcasts. We will cut them up, edit them for television and then use MSNBC or CNBC or CNN or Netflix as a point of distribution. And be able to strike a deal because the incremental cost of the network of having good quality content will be pretty minimal. And the incremental cost to us for new distribution would be pretty minimal. So, you know, effectively podcasts are smaller businesses that are much more profitable than traditional television.

• 24:38Speaker 12

  And that's going to be very attractive. If you're, if you've got two hours of open space on the weekend for an MSNBC or CNBC, why wouldn't you take the best business or the best politics podcast, edit it for TV, increase the production value? And just split the revenue with the, with the podcast producers and it's no incremental risk to either party. So you're going to see TV become more like podcasts and podcasts become more like TV. The, the mediums are converging, but ultimately the two big takeaways here are Netflix and YouTube have opened another front in the war against each other. And this is just arbitraging the means of production that produce,

• 25:23Speaker 12

  produce content at a lower price, which is, which is what the industry is looking for.

• 25:27Ed Elson?

  All right, Scott. Enjoy your pub dinner. What did you order?

• 25:30Speaker 12

  We had, we had ribs. Uh, what did I order?

• 25:35Ed Elson?

  Steak and ale pie.

• 25:36Speaker 12

  For the hors d'oeuvres, the main course and the dessert, we had Guinness.

• 25:42Ed Elson?

  That's a classic order. Okay. Enjoy your night. Thank you, Scott.

• 25:45Speaker 12

  Thanks, guys.

• 25:51Ed Elson?

  A powerhouse group of investors, including Nvidia, Microsoft, XAI and BlackRock, are buying one of the world's biggest data center operators. The $40 billion deal for Aligned Data Centers is the largest data center acquisition ever. It's also the first investment from the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership, which was created last year to accelerate AI infrastructure spending. So BlackRock, Nvidia, Microsoft, XAI, they're all teaming up and they're going to buy this company, Aligned Data Centers. For context, this company was last valued in January at $12 billion. Nine months later, we are now at $40 billion. So this is a very rich valuation.

• 26:33Ed Elson?

  It is also a rich valuation when you look at this as a multiple of sales. The company is doing about $1.5 billion in revenue, which would value the company at 25 times sales. That is far higher than Aligned Data Centers competitors like Equinix or DLR. They trade at around 10 times sales. So what are BlackRock and Nvidia and all these investors? What are they so excited about? Well, it's pretty simple. Data centers are the hot new thing. Everyone wants to build one. Everyone wants to design one. Everyone wants to invest in one. This deal is one of many deals. We have seen roughly 1.5 thousand new data centers have been announced this year.

• 27:17Ed Elson?

  And in most cases, as with this one, the investors are paying a significant premium to get in on the action. So this is really nothing new. And it got us thinking, especially after our investigations into OpenAI and their spending ambitions, it got us thinking, how realistic is any of this? All of these data centers that we are seeing, is it hype or is it legit? Are we really going to see thousands of data centers? Or are investors getting over excited about this to the point where it doesn't really make sense? Well, our research lead, Mia Silverio, uncovered some data that we found quite intriguing. And what it tells us is that despite all of the investment that we're seeing that

• 28:01Ed Elson?

  is pouring into these data centers, the data centers themselves are not actually getting built right now. In fact, of all of the data centers that have been announced, only a quarter of them are actually undergoing construction.

• 28:17Ed Elson?

  And this is especially apparent when you look at the earnings of the companies that actually do the building for these data centers. Jacob Solution, for example, is the number one company for data center engineering. Their revenue is actually flat. It hasn't grown in two years. FluorCorp, which is one of the top data center construction companies, they actually just reported a 6% decline in their sales and also a 12% decline in their backlog, i.e. the sales they're going to see in the future. So when we look at the data center activity that is happening, yes, a lot of investment, but not a lot of actual building. And then there is this other unanswered question, which is how all of these data centers are going to be powered.

• 29:01Ed Elson?

  How are we going to supply the energy for all of these data centers? The number of interconnection requests, that is, the applications that are required to connect these centers to the electric grid, i.e. power them, the number of those requests is currently 10 times higher than the number of data centers that are being built. In other words, the grid is overwhelmed right now, which means that it's not even clear if there's enough power to keep the data centers' lights on, which is why, by the way, these construction timelines to build these data centers, they keep on getting extended out by four, five, in some cases, even six years. It's also why electric costs have doubled in the areas where data centers have been built.

• 29:44Ed Elson?

  There is this mismatch between the supply for the data centers and the demand for the data centers. We keep on seeing all these deals about how all these data centers are going to get built. And then when it comes to actually building the thing, suddenly a lot of doubts come up, a lot of questions arise, and in many cases, these things aren't being built. Now, why is this important? Again, why do we care? Well, because this is a major part of the AI story, and therefore it is potentially a major part of the AI bubble. We're seeing huge amounts of investment into these data centers and also a huge amount of debt that is being issued to build them. In fact, when you look at the investment grade debt market, AI is the

• 30:27Ed Elson?

  single largest source of debt in the US right now. There is more debt being issued in AI right now than in the entire financial sector. So in other words, what we're dealing with here isn't just equity risk. It's not just that we might see a wipeout in the values of many of these AI stocks or these AI private companies. We're also now dealing with credit risk. We are looking at the possibility of defaults on these data centers, and it could happen at a very large scale. Now, this isn't to say that the data center boom isn't going to happen. It almost certainly will. But it is to say that this boom, which everyone's

• 31:06Ed Elson?

  very excited about, it's not going to be anywhere near as big as many investors seem to think. When you look at the actual economics of these things, suddenly you start to realize, actually, this stuff doesn't really make sense. And if we had to make a prediction, we would estimate that roughly a third of these data centers that have been announced, roughly a third of them will never actually materialize because the economics just don't work here. So next time you see a big data center headline like this one, these huge multiples, all of these very exciting investors, just remember, take it with a grain of salt. The investors are big, the numbers are sexy, but don't let that distract you from what

• 31:50Ed Elson?

  is actually realistic. You always have to ask yourself, is this talk or is this action? Is it hype or is it legit? And will any of this actually materialize?

• 32:04Ed Elson?

  Okay, that's it for today. This episode was produced by Claire Miller, edited by Joel Patterson and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our associate producer is Alison Weiss. Our research team is Dan Shalan, Isabella Kinsel, Chris Nodine, Hugh and Mia Silverio. And our technical director is Drew Burrows. Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from Prof G Media. If you like what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. Tune in tomorrow for a conversation with Jonathan Cantor.

• 32:33Speaker 13

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• 33:03Speaker 14

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• 33:31Speaker 13

  1-800-CONTACTS.

• 33:33Speaker 15

  They're running a Cover 2 defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.