The Senate killed crypto market structure 46-43 — Lummis: “I think we’re done. It’s over.” Bitcoin fell 3.84% to $76,058. The 10-year posted its first 5%-handle close, a seventh straight, on the eve of a hike priced at 96%. WTI +4.10% to $105.55 with Saudi’s pipeline up to six weeks from repair; EIA weekly diesel broke $6 at $6.285. Empire State collapsed to 7.6 from 20.60. Carlyle likened AI-infrastructure lending to subprime. Thermo Fisher +4.53%; Wells Fargo cut its S&P target to 7,700.
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MIB Daily: The Fed Can Raise Rates but It Cannot Pump Oil, 10Y at 5.006% on a Seventh Straight Rise With WTI +4.10%, as Carlyle Likens AI Lending to Subprime and Crypto’s Rulebook Dies 46-43
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MIB Daily: AI Safety Became a Capex Line Item, Lam -8.29% Against CrowdStrike +13.85%, and the Fed Meets Wednesday With the 10-Year at 4.999% and a $101.91 Barrel That Is a Refiner’s Margin and a Consumer’s Tax
Amodei’s weekend call to slow AI split the tape — Lam Research -8.29%, Applied Materials -7.07%, while CrowdStrike +13.85% and Palo Alto +13.09% led. Trump dismissed guardrails as a “SICK conspiracy.” Hormuz talks collapsed: WTI +1.86%, VIX +7.95%, diesel to an all-time $6.23. Wednesday’s hike is now near-unanimous, the 10-year closing at 4.999%. BofA guided banking fees down 10%; Altman ruled out a 2026 OpenAI IPO, knocking Goldman -3.96%. GE Vernova -8.62% on a street-low Sell.
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MIB Daily: The Market Bought a Meeting, Not a Deal, Rallying Into an 86% Hike as Crude Fell 3%, While Oracle’s Capex Lifted Dell 11.98% and Sank Oracle 1.74%, Sentiment 47.8 Before Wednesday
Hot core CPI (+0.3% MoM) lifted September hike odds to 86%, yet stocks rallied 0.86% and the VIX fell 11.21%. Iran agreed to meet Gulf ministers on Hormuz shipping, sending crude down nearly 3% and ending Brent’s eight-session run. Oracle’s $90-95bn capex guidance detonated AI hardware, Dell +11.98% to a record, HPE +10.70%. Consumer sentiment fell to 47.8, second-lowest since 1952, with one-year inflation expectations at 4.6%. Saudi Arabia shut its only non-Hormuz export pipeline. The Fed decides Wednesday.
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MIB Daily: Oil Hit $103 and Markets Sold It as a Rate Hike, With Saudi Output Down 1.9 mb/d and AI Hardware Dumped Ahead of Oracle’s Beat as Friday’s CPI Decides Whether the Fed Hikes Next Week
WTI closed above $100 for the first time since May, up 7.3% to $103.06; Saudi Arabia told OPEC its August output fell 1.9 mb/d. Stocks fell a fourth day as the 2-year jumped 15 bps on near-70% Fed hike odds. The ECB hiked to 2.50%, citing energy. Platinum sank 7%, silver 6.7%, gold 2.3%. Lam, Intel, Dell and Micron fell ~5% into Oracle’s print; ORCL beat and rose ~7% after hours. Apple gained 3.6% on its $1,999 foldable.
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MIB Daily: A Rate Hike Cannot Refill a Tanker, Brent $101.61 and Record Diesel Two Days Before CPI, AI Silicon Alone Bid as Ten of Eleven Sectors Fell, and the Sell Side Models 2027 at 4.850%
Brent closed above $100 for the first time since July as Iran fired ballistic missiles at a US base in Jordan — ten of eleven sectors fell, Energy alone gained. Yields rose as stocks fell, the 10-year at 4.850%. Retail diesel set an all-time record two days before CPI. Trump banned Canadian alcohol, dairy and motorcycles. Marvell lifted its two-year outlook to $30bn; Alphabet bought 22 years of Finnish nuclear power. Fed hike odds for next week’s meeting: 61%.
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MIB Daily: Bonds Refused to Rally as Brent Hit $99.28, Novartis -13.93% Dragged Healthcare to -2.54%, and Capital Bought the Constraint Again, Leaving Friday’s CPI to Settle a 60% Hike
Houthi strikes halted Saudi energy operations and pushed Brent within a dollar of $100 — stocks fell, yields rose, and that combination says inflation, not recession. Novartis cratered 13.93% on its second Phase III miss in five days, dragging Amgen down 10.08%. GPT-6 Astra’s rollout finished over the holiday and enterprise software de-rated: ServiceNow -4.99%, Shopify -7.57%. Amazon handed Qualcomm a warrant over 25 million shares. Consumer credit smashed estimates; balances hit records. CPI Friday, FOMC next week.
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MIB Weekly: The S&P Went Nowhere and Everything Under It Moved, WTI +9.22% With Energy Equities Not Following, SNDK +17.17% vs PANW -10.32%, FICO -16.68% by Directive, September Repriced Three Times, Still a Coin Flip
The September FOMC was repriced three times in five sessions and ended where it started: Barr said hike, Waller said hold, and Friday’s 162,000-payroll blowout against a 56,000 consensus flipped implied odds back to 58-60%. Underneath it, five days of US-Iran exchanges put WTI up 9.22% and took retail diesel to an all-time record $5.850, six days before the CPI on which Waller staked his vote. Technology split in half: Sandisk +17.17% against Palo Alto -10.32%.
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MIB Daily: Payrolls 162K Against 56K Bought a September Hike, the President Demanded Cuts Anyway, and Memory Rallied Regardless as Record $5.850 Diesel Leaves One CPI Print Deciding the Meeting
August payrolls tripled expectations at 162,000 and flipped September back to a coin-flip hike — implied odds 58-60%. The selloff was narrow: Netflix -5.35%, Palantir -4.49%, while memory ran hard (Sandisk +11.90%, Micron +6.10%). Tesla -5.92% as NHTSA opened an audit query into how it self-certified the Cybercab. FICO -16.68% after FHFA opened VantageScore to every GSE lender. Retail diesel set a record $5.850 a gallon, +57.6% year-on-year. Novartis’s Lp(a) drug failed after the close; Amgen and Ionis fell harder.
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MIB Daily: Waller Cut September Hike Odds From 63.2% to Roughly 50% While ISM Prices Paid Hit 72.6, Gold and Bitcoin Rallied With Equities on One Trade, Industrials Led Into a Tariff Date They Do Not Price
Waller put a September hold on the table and hike odds collapsed from 63% to roughly 50% — the S&P jumped 1.06%, the VIX 5.86%. ISM services beat at 55.4 with prices paid at 72.6, and yields fell anyway. NVIDIA confirmed Hugging Face at $12.93 billion. Iran struck Gulf states a second night; WTI hit six-week highs while Energy finished the only red sector. Canadian retaliation lands September 8. Bitcoin added 5.06% and Palantir surged 7.71% on a PwC alliance.
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MIB Daily: Yields Fell and Long-Duration Software Was Sold Anyway, Diesel Runs 54% Above Last Year Into a Split FOMC, and Broadcom Guides $21.7B in AI, So Does 4.818% Hold Through Friday’s Payrolls?
Equities snapped a three-day skid as the 10-year touched 4.818%, highest since November 2023, then reversed; S&P +0.46%, Russell 2000 +1.13%, VIX -6.79%. ADP added just 38,000 jobs before Friday’s payrolls. A judge spared Google’s ad exchange from divestiture. Chevron committed $7 billion to Venezuela as Washington widened sanctions relief. Nvidia rose 3.21% on a re-reported $14 billion Hugging Face deal. Uber cut 10% of staff as Delivery Hero backed its bid. Diesel closed 12.8 cents below its all-time high.
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MIB Daily: The Hedges Failed at the Moment of the Crisis, Gold -2.39% and Treasuries Sold Off as WTI Jumped 5.82% to $90.75, Debt-Financed AI Lost 5-7%, and Soft JOLTS Left Hike Odds at 66% Into Friday’s Payrolls
US forces struck IRGC targets inside Iran; WTI jumped 5.82% to $90.75 and Energy was the only green sector of note. The 10-Year hit a one-year high of 4.799% and gutted software — Oracle -5.23%, CrowdStrike -6.90%. Soft JOLTS and a cooling ISM left September hike odds at 66%. Gold fell 2.39%; the safe-haven bid never came. Anthropic signed a $35 billion cloud deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda. A judge let the shale price-fixing case proceed against Exxon, EOG and Occidental.
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MIB Daily: A VIX at 14.92 Says Nobody Is Paying for the Hormuz Tail, WTI +3.50% and Utilities Uncapped With PG&E -18%, While the Two-Year Refused to Confirm a 72% Hike Bet and AI Became the Hiding Place
US strikes near the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s overnight retaliation sent WTI up 3.50% to $86.32 and European gas to its highest since January 2023. Nine of eleven sectors closed red. California’s wildfire bill omitted the liability cap: PG&E -18%, Edison -23%. The FTC and 22 states sued Amazon over a $20bn ad-auction scheme; AMZN -2.50%. Warsh went hawkish at the G20 but the two-year refused to confirm. Aon bought USI for $17bn, all debt-funded.
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MIB Weekly: The S&P Rose 0.49% and Told You Nothing, Warsh Sent the 2Y Up 12.2bp and Hike Odds to 68%, Chicago PMI Hit 47.1, Gold and Semicap Took the Hit, Marvell Paid 10.28% for 90bp of Margin
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used his first Jackson Hole keynote to say the central bank has “more work to do” on inflation, and the two-year Treasury yield ended the week 12.2 basis points higher at 4.354% — September is now a live hike meeting, with Polymarket’s 2026 hike contract up twelve points to 68%. The damage landed on gold (−3.50%) and the Russell 2000 (−1.51%), not the S&P 500 (+0.49%). Friday’s rate move then took semiconductor equipment down 4–5%.
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MIB Daily: The Index Lied, Warsh’s 12.2bp Two-Year Move Hit Gold -3.34% and Semi Equipment -5% While the S&P Held, and Chicago PMI at 47.1 Asks Whether the Hike Trade Survives Next Week’s ISM
Warsh’s Jackson Hole debut put a September hike back on the table: the two-year jumped 12.2bp to 4.354%, its biggest day since June. Gold -3.34%, silver -4.31% and the Russell -1.39% took the hit while the S&P shrugged at -0.25%. He also retired forward guidance outright. Chicago PMI cratered to 47.1. PayPal -12.71% after Advent and Stripe walked from a $53bn bid it had already rejected. Semis unwound 4-5%; Amazon +3.95%. BioNTech -8.37% on a halted cancer trial.
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MIB Daily: One Sector Bought the Rally on the Day Washington Proposed Taxing It, Tech +3.09% Against an NYSE Down 0.38%, Three Fed Hawks Moved the Two-Year 0.8bp, PANW +12.83% on an Unsigned Deal, Warsh Friday
Technology surged 3.09% and carried the S&P 500 up 0.72% — while the NYSE Composite fell and eight of eleven sectors closed red. Cleveland’s Hammack says “now is the time to act” on a rate hike; the two-year moved 0.8bp. July’s goods trade gap blew out to $118.8B on a 68.7% jump in Korean chip imports — the same flow Washington is weighing tariffing. Palo Alto +12.83% on deal reports. Nvidia is said to be buying Hugging Face for $12.9B.
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MIB Daily: September Prices a 38% Hike, Not a Cut, With the 2-Year at 4.209% and the 10-Year Up 1bp on 3.7% PCE, a 4.6% Atlanta Fed Nowcast Splits a 1.5% Q2, and Record $4 Gas Lands With Crude Lower Before Warsh
Markets barely moved on a hot headline PCE — but futures now price a September rate HIKE near 38%, not a cut. Meta paid $16.7bn and accepted a decade-long two-hour daily cap on teen accounts. America is heading for its first $4 Labor Day on record, and it’s a refining story, not a crude one. Boston Scientific’s cyberattack has stopped it shipping orders worldwide. Atlanta Fed’s Q3 nowcast turned back up to 4.6%. Warsh’s first Jackson Hole keynote lands Friday.
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Markets: Stocks for the long run redux
Five assets in real terms since 1971, and one number that barely moves: equities returned 6.85% a year before the gold window closed and 7.03% after, while everything else re-rated. This piece works through why gold’s long-run return was set by statute rather than discovered, why its 5.21% bears no resemblance to the path, how little housing returned, and why the bill for a monetary regime change falls on whoever holds a fixed nominal promise.
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MIB Daily: The Disinflation Is in Crude and the Inflation Moved to Diesel, WTI -4.92% to $80.83 While the Crack Hit a Record $99.125, and Equities Bought AMD +4.91% Through a 68.2 Expectations Print
Crude cratered nearly 5% — the Iran sanctions were weaker than feared and Oman is brokering a Hormuz corridor. AMD jumped 4.91% on a Strong Buy upgrade, carrying semis into Nvidia’s Wednesday print. Consumer Expectations fell to 68.2, below the Conference Board’s own recession line; the market bought chips anyway. Canada retaliates dollar-for-dollar on C$27.6bn from September 8. Dick’s fell 30.68% and took Nike and Lululemon with it. Discount-rate minutes show four district boards wanted a hike.
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MIB Daily: The AI Trade Failed a Funding Test, Not a Demand Test, Alibaba Paying 9.67% for $10.2bn; Steel Rallied on a Tariff Priced Out; Payments Led; Yield Relief Was Plumbing; Nvidia Reports Wednesday
Samsung’s record $65-80bn payout still disappointed and took the US memory complex with it: SanDisk -6.49%, Micron -5.85%, the chip index into a bear market. Trump threatened 50% tariffs on Canadian autos and parts from 2027; Detroit sold off. Alibaba raised $10.2bn for AI at an 8.4% discount and fell 9.67%. Treasury’s broadest-ever Iran sanctions somehow knocked crude down 2.4%, though diesel still runs 52% above last year. Money hid in payments; Visa hit a 52-week high. Nvidia reports Wednesday.
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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
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.
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