The All-In Hosts Asked If the AI Trade Is Cracking. Here’s What Income Investors Should Do
CoreWeave's bonds and stock are cratering, and the All-In hosts are asking out loud whether the entire AI trade is starting to crack. Before you panic or pile in, there are two quieter corners of the market that income investors…
Debt at CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) has become a stress test for the whole AI trade. On the October 17, 2026 episode of the All-In podcast, the hosts asked whether the AI trade is breaking. They noted, “we’re in year four or five of this bull run” and raised the possibility that “we may hit the R word. Yeah, recession.”
The trigger was CoreWeave. On the All-In Podcast, the hosts said its bonds were being marked down to 80% and that the stock fell 15 to 20% in a few days. The selloff has kept going. Shares traded at $61.90 as of 2:35 PM ET today, down 22.88% over the past week and 54.77% over the past year.
Why CoreWeave Became the AI Trade’s Pressure Gauge
CoreWeave rents GPU computing power to AI labs, hyperscalers, and enterprises, and it largely funds that expansion with borrowed money. The growth is real. Second-quarter revenue rose 112.3% to $2.575 billion, and backlog reached about $104 billion as of June 30, according to its Q2 filing with the SEC. But capex of $6.42 billion pushed free cash flow down to -$5.74 billion, and interest expense climbed to $640 million from $267 million a year earlier.
Bloomberg Tech host Ed Ludlow said CoreWeave carries “$52 billion of debt on its balance sheet” and that its latest quarterly interest bill was larger than its operating income. Debt-to-equity is 8.94, and net debt-to-EBITDA (debt measured against operating cash earnings) is 10.75. Echoing the All-In Podcast’s concerns, Ludlow said CoreWeave’s 2032 bonds yielded 15%, while the 10-year Treasury traded at 5.09%. That gap signals real lender risk.
Bull Case: The Hosts Still See Massive Demand
The hosts also pushed back on the panic. They pointed to “massive demand, token prices coming down, but token consumption going way up.” They added that GPUs once expected to last three to five years may “keep going into year six, seven, eight for inference alone.” That would stretch the useful life of the chips that back CoreWeave’s loans. They argued that sharp swings come with “underwriting to multi-trillion-dollar outcomes.”
Some of CoreWeave’s numbers back that view. Operating cash flow turned positive at $679 million, compared with -$251 million a year ago, and adjusted EBITDA doubled to $1.51 billion. Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS | GS Price Prediction) upgraded the stock to Buy on Monday, calling the debt worries overblown. Even so, CoreWeave’s dividend yield is close to zero at ~0.10%, so shareholders rely almost entirely on the share price.
Where Income Investors Near Retirement Can Find Ballast
If you live off your portfolio, the CoreWeave selloff shows how leverage can work against you. More solid ground tends to come from companies that generate far more free cash flow than they pay out in dividends and have long records of raising those payouts. Here are two examples.
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) yields 2.67% and just reached its 70th consecutive year of dividend increases, putting it in the exclusive Dividend Kings club (we ranked ten of them by valuation in a free report here). Unlike the CoreWeave debt the All-In Podcast highlighted, P&G’s fiscal 2026 free cash flow of $15.835 billion covered about $10 billion in planned dividends roughly 1.58 times. Its beta of 0.377 signals far less volatility than the market. The risks: fourth-quarter organic sales were flat, and management expects about $1 billion in after-tax cost pressures in fiscal 2027.
ADP
Automatic Data Processing (NASDAQ:ADP) yields 2.3%. Fiscal 2026 operating cash flow of $5,441.2 million, minus $196.6 million in capex, left $5,244.6 million in free cash flow. That covered the $2,626.3 million it paid in dividends about 2.0 times. Management expects adjusted EPS growth of 9% to 11% in fiscal 2027. Payroll volumes rise and fall with the economy, though, and U.S. pay-per-employee growth is expected at just 0% to 1%. A recession would slow it further.
What to Watch Before the Next Leg
Both yields are below the 5.09% Treasury, so their value to income investors comes from dividend growth and steady cash generation. For CoreWeave, the key question in its next report is whether interest costs keep running ahead of operating income. In the near term, Meta Platforms’ (NASDAQ:META) third-quarter results this week will offer a key read on whether hyperscaler spending is holding up.
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Chris Lange is a financial and geopolitical writer with more than a decade of experience covering a myriad of topics. He has published thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St., with past coverage focused heavily on stocks, IPOs, healthcare, defense, global affairs, and technology.
His work has been quoted, or referenced by a number of outlets including Business Insider, USA Today, Yahoo Finance, MSN, The Motley Fool, and many other publications. A graduate of Southwestern University, he studied business with a focus on investments and has previous experience in banking and startups.
When not reading or writing the news, he is following his passion for Lacrosse, playing chess, or building solar projects with his dad.
