There is never a singular reason. But there are negligible reasons. S&P not changing its rules was a negligible reason for today's tanking.
Isn't it all subjective in the end because nobody really makes their trades with verifiable notes expressing the exact reason. So we can only guess right?
Precedent and timing. Rates-related news is always going to massively shift the market, and the market shifting right after the jobs report is a pretty clear signal.
Moreover, S&P holding course wasn't new information–there was zero evidence of anyone pre-trading a rebalancing, which means the market didn't expect S&P to materially change its rules.
Arm and AMD pumped to insane levels on basically nothing.
What proof is there for your narrative versus mine?
If you are asking why one theory tends to be better than another is qualitative at best, but irrelevant quick. Once the two theories settled in people's brains, it only exacerbated the sell off. In a sense, the theories were irrelevant. Their impact, however, was not.
In other words, I think you have the entire structure all wrong. It is not binary at all. Or, at least, it does not require for it to be mutually exclusive.
What does this mean?
They pumped ai adjacent stocks to draw retail in, to provide liquidity now when they are in theory forced to purchase SpaceX.
Effectively getting people to buy semi-ai stocks at a premium to fund their forced purchase for SpaceX.
What?
SpaceX is the hype not AMD guy