Fox Business Clips Sep 17, 2026
With Mark Malek, Chief Investment Officer at Siebert Financial
The comparison analysts reach for when they call the data center buildout a bubble is the fiber overbuild of the late 1990s. Mark Malek said the two cases are inverted.
Fiber was laid into a glut. Compute, power and cooling are being bought into a shortage, and Malek's argument is that a shortage is what makes the spending rational.
"We have the exact opposite: all of the major players just clamoring for more capacity, whether it's compute, whether it's power, whether it's cooling — all of that stuff, demand continues to be high."
Malek is Chief Investment Officer at Siebert Financial and told the host their long-running buildout thesis has not changed. He came on the day Generac signed a power deal with Amazon and CoreWeave raised fresh money into a falling share price.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 4 calls that matter.
Key Takeaways
The fiber analogy fails because fiber was a glut and compute is a shortage
CoreWeave absorbs financing risk for the hyperscalers, which makes it the name most exposed to rates
The AI safety alarm is noise that will simmer down in a couple of months, on his read
A very low VIX would be a coiling snake only if it stayed low for long, which he does not think is what is happening
Guidance stretching five to ten years out is new, and he takes it as a signal about backlogs
1. Not the Fiber Overbuild
The host opened with the day's evidence rather than a thesis. Generac had signed a major deal with Amazon, which he described as scrambling for data center power and trying to lock it in as far forward as possible. Nebius had raised on-demand GPU prices effective October 1, and the host singled out a 17% increase on the H-100 as the more telling of the two moves he cited. GE Vernova, he added, had given visibility not to next year but out toward 2030 and 2040.
Malek's answer was that the comparison people keep making to the fiber overbuild gets the supply side backwards.
"A lot of people like to talk about the great overbuild of fiber that happened in the past and what followed, but the reality is, back then, there wasn't scarcity — there was too much of that stuff." — Mark Malek
"We have the exact opposite: all of the major players just clamoring for more capacity, whether it's compute, whether it's power, whether it's cooling — all of that stuff, demand continues to be high." — Mark Malek
2. CoreWeave Carries the Risk
Asked about CoreWeave raising more money on a day its shares fell, and whether there is a tipping point on backlogs and spending commitments, Malek separated CoreWeave from the rest of the group. He described it as the company absorbing the financial strain on behalf of the hyperscalers above it, which makes interest rates its binding constraint rather than demand.
"They're basically a lot more sensitive, in my opinion, to where interest rates are heading, because they rely heavily on financing" — Mark Malek
"But if anything changes, the road could get rockier for a company like that. That's why I expect to see more volatility." — Mark Malek
3. What the Polls Show
The host called the data center backlash hysteria, noted that the fear now attaches to superintelligence rather than to anything currently in service, and raised the possibility that it becomes a midterm election issue and shifts the balance of power in Washington. He then put a New York Times and Siena poll on screen to make the opposite point: climate change and data centers each came in at 1% among the concerns voters named, below the economy, foreign policy and inflation.
Malek treated the political story as temporary.
"Well, look, I think that it's a lot of noise right now. I think turn the clock forward a couple of months and you're going to see all that stuff simmer down." — Mark Malek
"The train is moving fast — they just have to make sure that seat belts are on, but for the most part, this will continue." — Mark Malek
4. Buy the Pullbacks
On the market itself Malek said he remains constructive, and that the index has withstood more than he would have expected. The host raised the low VIX and the contrarian reading that a quiet volatility market is a warning. Malek allowed that a volatility index pinned low for a long stretch could be a coiling snake, but said that is not what he sees: in his reading the market is taking in the macro data and processing it correctly, and nothing has changed in the buildout thesis.
The host then walked through the charts. Caterpillar was sitting on its 200-day moving average, with Vertiv and Eaton showing similar shapes, all pulled back to what he called key support, and he asked whether that is where an investor adds. Malek said the scare episodes are the buying opportunities, and that the pullbacks hold as long as the fundamentals do not change.
His supporting point was about disclosure rather than price. Some of these companies are now guiding five to ten years out, which he said did not used to happen, and nobody extends a forecast that far without confidence in the order book behind it.
Bonus Insights
The host said he still has a spool of fiber optic cable outside his office from the last buildout and cannot remember what it cost or what it was for. Malek's reply was that it is probably still there
The host's advice to viewers around the segment was to treat volatility-driven selloffs as entry points rather than to panic, and he pointed to the S&P 500 sitting close to a breakout level
Malek framed the competitive pressure on the buildout as existential: the companies involved cannot slow down because they are competing globally
Malek's bottom line is that scarcity, not enthusiasm, is what is driving the data center spend, so the political noise around AI is a chance to buy the picks-and-shovels names rather than a reason to reduce them.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
CoreWeave (The name he singles out as carrying the hyperscalers' financing risk and therefore the most rate-sensitive)
Generac and Amazon (The power deal signed after the close that opened the segment)
Nebius (Raised on-demand GPU prices effective October 1, including a 17% increase on the H-100 the host flagged)
GE Vernova (Cited by the host for giving demand visibility out toward 2030 and 2040)
Caterpillar, Vertiv and Eaton (The three charts the host put up, all pulled back to what he called key support)
Siebert Financial (Malek's firm)
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