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“Markets bottom on bad news,” is one of those smart-sounding rules of thumb that proves true just often enough to remain a Wall Street cliché in good standing.

Did the brutal weeks-long punishment of AI stocks culminate last week and reverse higher Monday after a pileup of adverse headlines? In the past week, American voters resoundingly opposed data-center construction across much of the country and Anthropic lowered its target IPO valuation just before a sex-and-espionage scandal struck the one-man embodiment of the entire AI economy, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. 

The story of a market taking a cue from a crescendo of bad news after a nasty setback to stage a resounding…