Treasury doubled its long-bond buybacks on Wednesday and the market unwound the entire move by Thursday’s close, leaving the S&P 500 down 1.43% and both yields higher on the week. The chip complex fell roughly 5.5% twice in three sessions, Intel -12.13%, while Merck added 12.30% on the first positive Phase 3 for an individualised cancer vaccine, making Healthcare the week’s second-best sector. Bitcoin closed +23.18%, gold +5.44%, and Friday’s flash PMI hit a 52-month high.
Archive | August, 2026
MIB Weekly: Treasury’s Backstop Lasted Twenty-Four Hours, Chips Fell 5.5% Twice With 30 of 30 Down, a Tariff Pause Was Never Published, and Gold and Bitcoin Took What Semis Lost
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MARKETS: Gauging internal health of the S&P500
The reading now? Promising solid BULL but VULNERABLE to short-term pullback. Watch those first 2 panes – they are weakening and that’s the pullback warning. Panes below show FINANCIALS, INDUSTRIALS, CONSUMER, UTILITIES and REAL ESTATE have rolled over (XOA counts < 3) and eventually may overwhelm the TECH drive. But the MACRO NNHI (net new hi) COUNT is firmly in the longer term bull camp. His reading is that pullbacks are a buying opportunity for now.
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MIB Daily: Not a Rate-Cut Rally but a Growth One, PMI 56.0 With the 2Y Charging 4.7bps, Gold $4,672 and Bitcoin $77,522 Bid on a Flat Dollar, Utilities -1.97% Into Warsh in Seven Days
Flash PMI shocked at 56.0, a 52-month high, putting Q3 growth near 3%: cyclicals bought it, the two-year charged for it. US-Canada talks collapsed; 50% duties hit $20B of Canadian goods at midnight. Gold cleared $4,672 and Bitcoin ran 6.69% to $77,522 with the dollar flat and yields higher. Tesla +5.14% on Nevada’s first paid robotaxi permits; Marvell -5.56% despite a 38% target raise. Fourteen Walmart cuts, eight Ross raises, same session. Oil rigs fell a third straight week.
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MIB Daily: The Backstop Lasted One Day, With Volatility Rising Alongside Yields to 5.248%, Walmart Down 9.15% on a Beat, and Memory and Bitcoin the Only Bid Before Warsh Speaks on August 28
Wednesday’s Treasury buyback rally unwound in one session — 30-year back to 5.248%, S&P -0.87%, Dow -1.32%, VIX +7.52%. Bessent promised a bigger program, and “the toughest sanctions in history” on Iran: WTI +2.28%, gasoline a record for the date. Musalem and Daly split on whether the long end is a credibility warning. Walmart -9.15% on a comps miss. Memory bucked the tape again: Marvell +5.79%, Micron +3.97%. Bitcoin +5.07% past $72,000. Canada’s 50% duties attach Saturday with nothing published.
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MIB Daily: The Debt Manager Rescued the Long End, Not the Fed, as Chips Fell 5.6% With 30 of 30 Down and Nebius -9.87% Repriced AI’s Funding End, Leaving Healthcare +3.37% and Metals +3.62% Hostage to Rates
Treasury doubled its long-bond buybacks and the tape turned: 10-year -6.8 bps, dollar -0.86%, gold +3.60%. Not a Fed trade: the July minutes showed several members ready to hike, nobody for a cut, and the market shrugged. Chips fell 5.6% a second day, all 30 down. Merck +12.60% on the first Phase 3 win for a cancer vaccine. Marvell handed Google a $12.2bn warrant; Broadcom paid -4.61%. Canada’s 50% tariffs pause three days; Bitcoin +6.25% on an SEC framework.
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MIB Daily: One Analysis, No New Demand Data, 5.4% Off the Chips, Software Still Green, GDPNow Cut to 4.03%, and a 56% No-Landing Book That Argues for Rotating Within Risk Assets Rather Than Adding
A Wall Street Journal tally of $3 trillion in off-balance-sheet AI commitments gutted the memory complex — SNDK -9%, MU -7%, chips -5.4% — and dragged the Nasdaq 100 down 1.68%. Trump says no Iran talks; a bulk carrier was struck inside Hormuz and crude rose a third session. Housing starts collapsed 12.4%. Section 338 tariffs on Canada bite at midnight. GDPNow’s Q3 estimate has lost a third in a fortnight. Gold fell 1.79% anyway — the hedge failed.
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MIB Daily: The Front End Didn’t Blink, WTI +3.23% and the 30-Year at 5.31% Lifted Energy While Communication Services Bled, Nvidia’s $105B Ohio Bet, Meta’s $1.4T Trial, Wednesday’s Auction the Test
The US-Iran framework expired with no extension and Trump threatened to bomb Oman — WTI +3.23% to $84.10, Energy led. The 30-year yield hit 5.31%, highest since 2007, while the 2-year barely moved. Nvidia guaranteed up to $105B for one OpenAI campus in Ohio. Meta’s youth-harms trial opened with $1.4T on the table; META -3.54%. Canada has 36 hours before a 50% tariff. Anthropic posted $11.5B Q2 revenue and its first operating profit.
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MIB Weekly: Credit Priced AI on Disclosure Not Demand, AMD +6.4% vs Broadcom -8.1%, Brent +7.65% on Hulls Not Barrels, and Soft Data Lifted Yields While Three Names Sank the Dow
AI capital expenditure moved onto the credit market’s balance sheet this week: Goldman began syndicating Nvidia’s $500 billion financing programme, and the market immediately split the complex — AMD +6.42% after pricing a $4.75B bond through talk, Broadcom -8.13% on a $370B off-balance-sheet estimate. Brent gained 7.65% as Hormuz transits fell to six vessels a day. And two disinflation prints took hike odds to 49% before Friday’s retail sales miss (-0.6%) sent yields the wrong way.
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MIB Daily: Bad News Stopped Being Good News, Weak Retail Sales and Hormuz Risk Lifted Yields as AMD’s Bond Deal Beat Broadcom’s AI Debt Fears, Setting Up Wednesday’s Tariff Cliff for Energy Over Tech
A record intraday high evaporated: retail sales fell 0.6% and UMich sentiment crashed to 51.0 — yet Treasuries sold off, because inflation expectations rose. The 10Y hit 4.692% and GDPNow cut Q3 growth to 4.3%. AMD surged 6.50% on a record $4.75B bond deal while Broadcom sank 5.94% on hidden AI debt. Goldman began syndicating Nvidia’s $500B financing. The UAE accused Iran of piracy in Hormuz. And Canada is five days from a 50% tariff cliff.
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MIB Daily: Silver Lake’s $43B Workday Bid Buys the AI Discount, SanDisk +13.67% vs Cisco -8.40% on the Same Memory Squeeze, and a 10-Year That Won’t Follow the 2-Year Down — Own Software LBOs, Watch Hardware Margins
S&P 500 closes above 7,800 for the first time — flat July PPI knocked 2026 hike odds from 55% to under 35%. Hours later, Cleveland’s Hammack demanded an immediate hike, and said one won’t be enough. Silver Lake circles Workday at $43B; Ackman buys six AI-discounted franchises. SanDisk +13.67% on memory tightness; Cisco -8.40% on the same. Reddit joins the S&P 500 next Tuesday; Anthropic’s October IPO is being modelled at $2 trillion. Six days to the Canada tariff cliff.
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MARKETS: Thin Loop. Rigid Lease. One Recognition Date.
For eight months the same argument has circulated: hyperscalers fund AI labs, labs buy chips, chip revenue validates the hyperscalers. The loop is real. It is also thin — $46bn of equity cash against $879bn of purchase commitments, on the circulating chart’s own legend. The binding constraint sits where nobody is drawing arrows: roughly $2.6tn of arm’s-length obligations owed to landlords, utilities and builders, non-cancellable, with an accounting recognition that lands from 2027. The loop is not the risk. The lease is.
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MIB Daily: CPI’s In-Line Core of 2.5% Steepens the Curve on a $432B Deficit While VIX Craters to 14.55 — Rotate Dell and Oracle Over Microsoft and Amazon as Capex Risk Builds, but What’s Left to Buy Into a Busy Calendar?
July CPI landed exactly on consensus — core at 2.5%, slowest since March 2021 — and the VIX collapsed 4.78% to 14.55, an eight-month low. But the 10-year rose anyway: Treasury booked a record $432B July deficit with customs receipts turning negative. AI hardware ripped (Dell +9.87%, Oracle +5.36%), funded by selling Microsoft and Amazon. Canada rejected a sweetened US offer seven days from the tariff cliff. Meta fell 3.38% as its 29-state trial began. Crude posted its biggest build since 2023.
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MIB Daily: Crude’s 5th Gain and EIA’s 8.5% Diesel Hike Mean CPI Won’t Be Reassurance — Payrolls Decelerate a 6th Week as Chip-Equipment (KLA +4.01%) Outruns AI Platforms (GOOGL -3.84%)
Hormuz transits collapse to six vessels against a pre-war 140 — crude posts a fifth straight gain and equities slip into tomorrow’s CPI. The EIA picks the same day to raise its 2026 diesel forecast 8.5% and sees crude stocks below the five-year low all year. Private payrolls decelerate for a sixth week; the front end barely blinked. Alphabet -3.84% as 300 French publishers file over AI Overviews. Intel prices an upsized $20B raise at $95 on $100B of demand.
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MIB Daily: Oil’s 5% Hormuz shock reprices inflation risk as chipmakers tap $500B in outside AI financing and a second chokepoint breaks the rerouting hedge — does September turn stagflationary after Wednesday’s CPI?
Oil ripped 5.2% after Iran demanded the US blockade lift before Hormuz reopens — Energy +3.61%, the S&P still closed flat. Yields and VIX rose together: an inflation scare, not a growth one, two days before CPI. Cleveland’s Hammack wants more than one hike. Chips led the downside — Nvidia -2.87% on $500B of financing, Intel -4.04% on a $15B raise — while TSMC’s July revenue hit a record. Palo Alto and CrowdStrike set records. Vertex jumped 6% on a rival’s failure.
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MIB Weekly: The Market Outvoted Five Fed Hawks and Bought a Record on a 23K Job Loss — AI Now Pays for Capital Discipline, Not Growth, and a Beat Buys Nothing; Wednesday’s CPI Can Undo All of It
The S&P 500 closed at a record 7,757.46, up 3.57% on the week, after July payrolls contracted 23,000 against an +83,000 consensus and priced a September rate hike out of the front end — over the objections of five Fed officials who spent four sessions arguing for one. Crude round-tripped 8.8% lower on the Hormuz reopening trade, leaving Energy down 3.66% with the strait still shut. Palantir surged 39.78%; AMD beat on every line and fell 7% on its capex.
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MIB Daily: Wall Street Bet a 23K Payrolls Miss Was Dovish as GDPNow Tracks 5.8% — S&P Hits a Record 7,757, Hike Odds Fall to 40%, and Washington Moves to Remove Fed Governor Cook; Favor Small-Caps, Utilities Over Energy
July payrolls contracted 23,000 against +83,000 expected — and the S&P 500 closed at a record 7,757.46 anyway, capping its best week since April. September hike odds collapsed from above 50% to 40%. Gold ripped 2.31% to $4,398.87; copper fell 1.87%. Energy was the only sector down more than 1% as crude surrendered Thursday’s Hormuz spike. Trump’s polysilicon tariff sent First Solar up 9%. And the White House restarted its bid to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook.
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MIB Daily: Oil Just Took the Fed’s Steering Wheel — Brent +4.72% Overrides Soft Labor Costs While GS -2.62% and C -2.78% Drag the Dow, Williams Waves Off an AI Bubble, and Crude Sparks a Rotation Ahead of Friday’s Payrolls
Iran’s restrictive Hormuz draft blew up the reopening trade — Brent +4.72% to $83.20, Energy the lone sector gainer. Banks dragged the Dow down 464 points; Goldman and Citi each off more than 2.5%. Q2 unit labour costs came in at 1.3% against 2.1% expected and claims held below 200K for a third week — yields rose anyway. SpaceX doubled its float and still closed up 6.14%. Williams says AI isn’t a bubble; tech steadied, Microsoft +2.54%. July payrolls Friday, 80K expected.
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MIB Daily: Dow’s Record Close Hid an AI Reckoning — NVIDIA +3.43% Outguns Alphabet’s Retreat as Soft ADP Data Puts Friday’s Payrolls on Recession Watch
The Dow closed at a record 54,349 — and almost nothing else did. Private payrolls added just 44,000, ISM services employment fell into contraction, and September hike odds slid to 57% even as Kashkari and Cook publicly pushed for tightening. Alphabet dropped 4.03% after losing its chief scientist and DeepMind CEO in one day. Gold surged 3.71% to $4,306. Tower REITs fell 6% each as SpaceX aimed Starlink at the carriers. AI infrastructure sold off on no news; NVIDIA rose 3.43%.
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MIB Daily: A Record Built on an Unsigned Hormuz Deal — Tech Carries It, AMD Tests It, Macro Waits Its Turn
Records everywhere: Dow tops 54,000 for the first time, S&P 500 hits 7,736.49. Brent collapses 6.08% to $78.68 as Bessent floats a Hormuz deal “today or tomorrow” — but June’s signed deal already failed on the same question. Tech rips 4.25%; Intel and SanDisk both +10.84%. AMD beats on everything and falls 8% after hours anyway. Bezos files to sell $4.07B of Amazon. JOLTS and factory orders both miss — nobody cared. Philadelphia Fed’s Paulson keeps a rate hike alive.
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MIB Daily: Oil Did the Fed’s Job Today — WTI’s 5.52% Crash Funds a Record Dow and a $3T Amazon, But Chips and Transports Aren’t Buying the Truce
Trump called off strikes on Iran and crude cratered — WTI -5.52% to $80 — but Tehran denies talking to Washington and Hormuz stays shut. The Dow closed at a record 53,178.41, and this time breadth came along: 8 of 11 sectors green, Russell +1.72%. ISM manufacturing hit a post-2022 high and GDPNow leapt to 6.2%; bonds rallied anyway. Williams says the Fed hikes if inflation stalls. AstraZeneca-Bristol Myers weighed a $400bn merger; AZN fell 9%. Amazon topped $3 trillion.
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