This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research. Not financial advice (NFA).
👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
💻 Broadcom’s AI sales tripled: revenue rose 86% to $29.6bn and the shares still fell about 5% after hours.
🛢️ Oil back in the danger zone: WTI is at $93, up 2.56% this morning, with the war described as stalled.
🏦 A rate rise is the base case: Trump says he will not talk Warsh out of one, and Japan leans to a hike too.
❄️ Snowflake up 24% pre-market: revenue grew 35% and the AI coding agent added 2,000 accounts in a quarter.
📉 Private hiring came in short: ADP counted 38,000 jobs in August against 47,000 expected, the weakest since January.
🚗 Uber cuts 3,300 jobs: about 10% of staff goes, with the number of managers cut by 20%.
🇨🇦 Canada holds and warns: rates stay at 2.25% for a 7th meeting, with Macklem raising the prospect of increases.
🇬🇧 Bailey faces the committee: MPs question the Governor with 30-year borrowing costs at 1998 levels.
₿ Bitcoin funds took $3.5bn: US spot bitcoin ETFs drew $3.52bn in August, their strongest month in over a year.
🧠 One Big Thing
Oil is into the danger zone. WTI is at $93 this morning, up 2.56%, Brent is above $95 for a third session, and the people running the war are describing it as stalled. That feeds straight into the thing I have been saying since Jackson Hole: we are really expecting an interest rate rise now. Probably in September. Most likely, definitely by the next meeting in October. Trump said this week he will not try to talk Warsh out of it. I have started keeping some cash on the side myself. That is my position, not a suggestion.
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
$93
WTI crude at $93 this morning, up 2.56% on the session and its third day higher, with Brent above $95. Every dollar on that number strengthens the case for a rate rise on 16 September.
⚔️ Winners vs Losers
Winners
SNOW 0.00%↑ : 24.15% Snowflake Inc. shares surged after fiscal Q2 revenue rose 35% to $1.55 billion with EPS of $0.62 beating the $0.45 consensus, and the company raised full-year product revenue guidance to $6.07 billion from $5.84 billion on accelerating AI demand.
CHPT 0.00%↑ : 18.30% ChargePoint Holdings, Inc. jumped after Q2 revenue climbed 18% to $116 million, well above the $105 million estimate, with a record 38% non-GAAP gross margin and a narrower adjusted loss than expected.
DLTH 0.00%↑ : 18.23% Duluth Holdings Inc. rallied after Q2 net income jumped to $18.4 million from $1.3 million, helped by $16.3 million in tariff refunds, and the company raised its fiscal 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $38 to $42 million from $28 to $32 million despite a 7.8% sales decline.
Losers
RARE 0.00%↑ : -46.22% Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. collapsed after its Phase 3 Aspire trial of apazunersen for Angelman syndrome failed to meet its primary cognitive endpoint and key secondary endpoint, prompting downgrades from JPMorgan, Evercore ISI and Baird.
RACC 0.00%↑ : -21.47% Research Alliance Corporation III fell in sympathy with Ultragenyx, as the SPAC is set to merge with Oak Hill Bio, whose lead asset rugonersen is an antisense oligonucleotide for Angelman syndrome using the same approach that just failed in Ultragenyx’s Phase 3 trial.
📊 Market Snapshot
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin (BTC): $77,697 (▲0.51%)
Ethereum (ETH): $2,395 (▲0.19%)
XRP: $1.36 (▲1.00%)
Equity Indices (Futures):
S&P 500: 7,670 (▼0.08%)
NASDAQ 100: 29,114 (▼0.25%)
FTSE 100: 10,775 (▲0.08%)
Commodities & Bonds:
10-Year US Treasury Yield: 4.78% (▲0.08%)
Oil (WTI): $93 (▲2.56%)
Gold: $4,428 (▲0.82%)
Silver: $65.62 (▲0.41%)
Data as of: UK: 11:59 AM BST / US: 6:59 AM EDT / Asia (Tokyo): 7:59 PM JST
✅ 5 Things to Know
💻 Broadcom tripled AI sales and fell anyway
Broadcom reported revenue of $29.59 billion for the quarter to 2 August, up 86% on the year, with adjusted earnings of $3.32 a share against the $3.24 analysts expected. AI semiconductor revenue was $16.7 billion, up 221% on the year and 54% on the quarter, which lifted the semiconductor division to 70% of the whole company. Free cash flow came in at $13.7 billion, 46% of revenue. The company then guided to about $34.8 billion for the current quarter against forecasts of $35.03 billion, and the shares dropped about 5% in extended trading. (Broadcom)
Broadcom is now a company where 1 division carries 70% of the revenue.
This is the third read on AI spending in 8 days, after Nvidia on 26 August and Dell on Tuesday night, and it is the one with the most customer detail in it. Hock Tan said AI semiconductor revenue accelerates to $21.7 billion this quarter, up 236% on the year, and that fiscal 2026 AI revenue reaches $58 billion. He also said Anthropic “is on track to become our largest XPU customer in 2027 and sustain that in 2028”, with 1 gigawatt of Ironwood capacity going in this year, 5 gigawatts of the next-generation TPU v8i in 2027 and a potential 10 gigawatts in 2028. Broadcom has also started production shipments of Google’s TPU v8i under an expanded long-term agreement. (Benzinga)
Sensei’s Insight: Broadcom’s growth now leans on a very short list of named buyers, Google today and Anthropic from 2027. That is a stronger business than it was 2 years ago and a narrower one. I am watching the customer names as closely as the revenue line.
🛢️ Oil is back in the danger zone as the war stalls
WTI crude is at $93 this morning, up 2.56%, and Brent is holding above $95 after 3 straight sessions of gains that took it to a 6-week high. The US completed a wave of strikes on Iran on Tuesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard answered with attacks on US positions in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and the UAE, and Trump said he is not interested in negotiating. Kpler counted 4 tanker crossings of Hormuz on Tuesday, down from 10 on Monday. US crude inventories fell 4.5 million barrels last week, the first drop since late July. (Trading Economics)
So how much oil is actually getting out? Nobody agrees. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC on Wednesday that more than 17 million barrels crossed the strait by ship on Monday, the most since the war began on 28 February. Samir Madani of TankerTrackers.com called that figure “mathemagics” and said it appears to add several days together; his 7-day average is 8.27 million barrels leaving the Arabian Sea, against a 28-day average of 6.85 million and about 20 million a day before the war. The price is siding with the lower number. (Fortune)
Sensei’s Insight: This is the danger zone. Oil in the 90s with a war nobody can end feeds straight into inflation, and inflation is what the Fed has told us it is watching. The 17 million barrel claim is a press conference. The tanker count is data.
🏦 A rate rise is now the base case, and Trump is not fighting it
Trump said this week he has not spoken to Kevin Warsh about rates and will not try to talk him out of a rise: “I have a lot of respect for him, and he’ll do what he has to do.” At least 6 of the 12 voting members have signalled possible support for an increase, and most traders now expect the committee to lift its target to 3.75% to 4% on 16 September. The Beige Book, published Wednesday, said activity rose modestly with data centre demand driving it, prices rose moderately in 8 of 12 districts, and contacts flagged heightened uncertainty over energy prices and the conflict. (Yahoo Finance)
Japan is moving the same way. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the Bank of Japan is leaning toward a quarter-point rise on 18 September while leaving the door open to a faster pace afterwards, and the yen jumped more than 1% to touch 156.15 per dollar, a 1-month high, as traders also weighed the risk of intervention. Canada held on Wednesday and warned of increases. The 10-year Treasury yield sits at 4.78% this morning. (CNBC)
Sensei’s Insight: We are really expecting a rise now. Probably September, and if not September then October. Same trigger across 3 central banks, and it is energy. A president who normally shouts about lower rates saying “he’ll do what he has to do” tells you where the pressure has gone.
❄️ Snowflake jumps 24% as the AI software layer gets paid
Snowflake reported adjusted earnings of 62 cents a share against the 45 cents expected, on revenue of $1.55 billion, up 35% and above the $1.48 billion forecast. Product revenue was $1.49 billion, up 37%, a third straight quarter of accelerating growth, and chief executive Sridhar Ramaswamy said AI offerings accounted for “approximately half of the acceleration”. The CoCo AI coding agent is now in 9,100 accounts, up more than 2,000 in the quarter. The company raised its full-year product revenue forecast to $6.07 billion from $5.84 billion, at least 22 brokers lifted their targets, and the shares were up 23.9% pre-market. (CNBC)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported the same night: revenue $12.21 billion, up 34% and above the top of its own range, adjusted earnings $1.11 against 93 cents expected, AI systems orders of $2.4 billion, up more than 30% on the quarter, and a raised full-year target. The shares fell about 4% after hours to $49.67. Put the 3 prints side by side and a pattern shows: the market paid for software that is selling AI to customers and sold the hardware that is building it. (Investing.com)
Sensei’s Insight: Same night, same theme, opposite verdicts. Broadcom and HPE beat and fell. Snowflake beat and gained a quarter of its value. The difference is where the AI money shows up: in orders that still have to be shipped, or in revenue that has already landed.
📉 Private hiring came in short before Friday’s jobs report
American companies added 38,000 jobs in August, the ADP payroll processor reported on Wednesday, against the 47,000 economists expected and an upwardly revised 46,000 in July. It is the weakest month since January. Education and health services did almost all of it at 45,000 posts, leisure and hospitality added 16,000 and construction 12,000, while manufacturing shed 17,000. Base pay for people who stayed in their jobs rose 3.2% on the year and gross pay 4.7%. (CNBC)
Another 2 labour readings land today before the big one. Initial jobless claims come at 1:30pm UK, which is 8:30am in New York, with consensus at 205,000 against 203,000 last week. The ISM services survey follows at 3:00pm UK, 10:00am ET, with consensus at 54.2 after 54.1, and the employment component inside it was 47.4 last month, below the 50 line that separates growth from contraction, in the sector that employs most of the country. Friday’s payrolls report is forecast at 45,000 jobs with the unemployment rate rising to 4.2% from 4.1%. (Investing.com)
Sensei’s Insight: A single sector produced more jobs than the whole private economy managed, because manufacturing went backwards. That is a narrow labour market, and a narrow one turns faster than a broad one. The wage line on Friday still matters more to me than the headline.
Stories You Might Have Missed
🚗 Uber cuts 3,300 jobs in its biggest layoff since the pandemic
Dara Khosrowshahi told staff in an internal email on Wednesday that Uber is cutting about 3,300 roles, roughly 10% of a headcount of around 34,000 across more than 70 countries. The restructuring shrinks the number of managers by 20%, halves the number of teams with only 1 or 2 people in them, and falls on staff more than 7 layers down from the chief executive, with the money going into ridesharing, delivery and robotaxis. Challenger, Gray & Christmas counted 149,023 announced tech job cuts in the first 7 months of 2026, up 67% on 2025, with AI the most-cited reason for a fifth straight month; its August tally published this morning. (TechCrunch)
🇨🇦 Canada holds a seventh time and warns on rate rises
The Bank of Canada left its overnight rate at 2.25% on Wednesday, a seventh consecutive hold. Governor Tiff Macklem said the persistence of the Middle East conflict has increased inflationary risks as energy prices float higher, that a re-escalating trade dispute with the United States threatens the recovery, and that multiple rate increases could be on the table if inflation does not cool. Canadian inflation was 3.0% in July, up from 2.8%. The next decision is 28 October, and Canada’s own jobs figures land on Friday in the same minute as the American ones. (Bank of Canada)
🇬🇧 Bailey answers for a 1998-level gilt market
The Treasury Committee questions Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey and members of the rate-setting committee today on the Bank’s latest forecasts, in public and on the record. It happens with the 30-year gilt yield having reached 5.89% on Tuesday, the highest since 1998, before clawing back some ground on Wednesday, and with October’s Budget still ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves. MPs are expected to press on the path of Bank Rate and on the pace of quantitative tightening, which is the Bank selling down the government bonds it bought after 2009. Bailey speaks again on Friday at 9:50am UK, 4:50am ET. (Trading Economics)
₿ Bitcoin funds recorded their strongest month in over a year
US-listed spot bitcoin ETFs took in about $3.52 billion of net new money during August, the largest monthly total in more than a year, with money leaving in only 5 of the 21 trading sessions. Bitcoin is at $77,697 this morning, up 0.51%. The same figure carries a historical caveat worth knowing: across the 12 months since these funds launched that drew $3 billion or more, bitcoin fell in the month immediately after 7 of them, and the average return in those following months was 0.13% against 2.93% for an average month. (Yahoo Finance)
This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always do your own research. Not financial advice (NFA).