General News - September 12, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Top of Mind

August core CPI ran 0.3% month-over-month above consensus and headline CPI held at 3.4% y/y, lifting Fed futures to an 87% probability of a 25bp hike Wednesday; the 10-year closed at 4.974%, within a hair of 5%. Equities still rallied Friday as Brent retreated from $110+ to settle at $104.61, but that relief is fragile. The Saudi East-West pipeline is shut after Iraqi drone strikes, and Houthi forces seized Perim Island, putting the Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint in hostile hands. In rates, positioning is already defensive: TLT puts traded 3.3x average and an $1.8M Oct 80/79 put spread bets on more long-end pain.

Catalyst Radar

• Wednesday FOMC is the main event; 87% priced for a 25bp hike. Watch the long-end response — BofA warns refraining from hiking would risk a significant 30-year selloff. August retail sales also due this week.
• Dreamforce runs Monday-Wednesday; Lennar reports Wednesday after the close; Intuit and Brinker analyst meetings Thursday. BRICS summit in India continues through the weekend.

Analyst / Opinion Columns

• WSJ Heard on the Street: inflation pressures are building while politicians race to win voters with big spending promises, adding further inflationary risk.
• Jim Cramer: Friday’s oil pullback changed the tape, but the Fed is the next big test. He warns an Iranian attack on a carrier group would spike oil and rates and clobber stocks; advises staying selective and avoiding margin.

1. Markets

• U.S. equities rebounded Friday: Dow +1.0% to 52,573, S&P 500 +0.9% to 7,657, Nasdaq +1.0% to 26,333. All three still lost ground on the week. 10-year yield 4.974%, 2-year 4.642%, 30-year 5.354%; dollar rose and gold was flat near $4,366/oz.
• Brent settled at $104.61 (-2.8% day, +8% week); WTI closed at $100.05 (-2.4% day, +9.4% week). European natural-gas storage is 67% — lowest in 15 years — with Germany/Netherlands near 50%; spot European gas is +75% since end-June, favoring U.S. LNG exporters Venture Global and Cheniere.
• Kalshi plans to seek approval for U.S. regulated single-stock perpetual futures on roughly 60 large ETFs and stocks; Coinbase has also filed. Hyperliquid’s single-stock perp volume has surged from $4B to $212B YTD, adding leverage and 24/7 risk to equities.
• Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness is back in public markets via options, buying AMD, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, SK Hynix, SanDisk and the Roundhill Memory ETF after the fund’s summer collapse.

2. Economy

• CPI details: headline 3.4% y/y; core +0.3% m/m above forecasts. Gasoline +27% y/y, diesel hit a record $6/gallon, airfare +23% y/y. UMich September consumer sentiment fell to 47.8 from 51.7.
• Fed futures imply 87% odds of a quarter-point hike — the first rate increase in three years — with investors pricing more than one. BofA strategists warn a hold after this CPI would risk a significant long-end selloff.

3. Business/Finance

• PayPal CEO Enrique Lores will keep the company independent: Venmo becomes a one-stop money app, costs are cut, and checkout improves. The stalled buyout left shares at $53 versus a $60.50 offer; Lores gets a $25M bonus if the stock averages above $68.
• Chime is buying Stride Bank for $590M as it pursues a bank charter. Bancorp shares slid 20% on partner-risk fears. Mizuho sees Robinhood volumes boosted by upcoming AI IPOs, raising its Q4 equity volume growth estimate to ~50% y/y.
• EverBank is pursuing a reverse merger with WaFd to create a $75B-asset bank; private-equity backers will own about 59.2% and the combined company will trade as EVBK.
• Block applied to form a federally regulated national trust bank for stablecoin and bitcoin custody, with no deposits or loans; OCC approval required.

4. World/Geopolitics

• Saudi Arabia shut its 7 mb/d East-West pipeline after drone attacks from Iraq. Houthis seized Mokha and Perim Island, potentially controlling the Bab al-Mandeb strait; MBS pressed Trump for U.S. military intervention, but Trump declined.
• At BRICS, Putin and Pezeshkian condemned Western sanctions and pushed local-currency trade; Modi continues to steer the bloc away from outright de-dollarization while calling for Middle East dialogue.
• Venezuela’s new oil deals — including U.S. government involvement via NABEP and Chevron’s roughly $7B expansion — could lift output from ~1 mb/d toward 2 mb/d relatively soon, though operator and country risk remains high.
• Russia is rerouting grain exports through its Far East as Black Sea strikes threaten traditional routes, adding logistics risk to wheat trade.

5. Technology/AI

• Dell jumped 12% on an RBC outperform initiation: $95B AI-server backlog, $16.4B in Q2 AI servers, and fiscal-year guidance raised to $192B. Shares are up roughly 350% in 2026.
• Oracle posted strong cloud-infrastructure growth but shares slipped 1.7% on rate-driven funding concerns for data-center buildouts. Its AI Data Platform narrative is seen as positive for Snowflake and MongoDB.
• Enterprise software is surviving AI disruption better than feared: Salesforce, ServiceNow, Snowflake and Workday all delivered strong results; Salesforce rose 22% after earnings and expanded its Anthropic partnership.
• SoftBank-backed SB Energy’s IPO filing shows no operational data centers and $430B of potential revenue, with 82% arriving after eight years and $174B in planned capex; flagship Ohio project depends on an unbuilt affiliated power plant.
• Sub-$100 smartphone shipments fell nearly 60% y/y in Q2 as AI-driven memory inflation pushed DRAM to ~60% of low-end phone bill-of-materials; Xiaomi and Oppo average selling prices are up ~30%.

Standouts

• Polymarket account hit a 98% win rate on 42 bets across KPMG-audited earnings — only ~$22k profit, but enough to fuel insider-trading suspicion.
• Election officials in Arizona and other jurisdictions are banning public employees from trading prediction-market contracts ahead of the midterms.
• Bending Spoons’ adjusted earnings exclude heavy amortization; Evernote’s revenue rose 30% while users fell 48%, and net revenue retention is only ~95%.
• Wealthy investors have poured $170B into tax-aware long-short strategies since 2022; Treasury is warning about “tax-alpha” products.
• Hermès watches resell at only 41% of sticker, pressured by Birkin-bait buying that undermines its watchmaking ambitions.