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👀 Today’s Stories at a Glance
🌍 India joins the rate raisers: the RBI lifted its rate to 5.50%, its first rise since 2023, hours before the Fed’s September minutes.
📈 A record on narrow legs: the S&P 500 closed at 7,818.93, while only about 25% of its stocks sit above their 50-day average.
🚀 SpaceX’s chip borrowing: SpaceX is in talks to raise $40 billion of debt for Nvidia chips, among the biggest AI financings yet.
🌀 Storm and strikes lift oil: a Gulf of Mexico storm and Houthi attacks on Saudi airports pushed Brent above $101 early on Wednesday.
🪙 Bitcoin’s 20-minute flush: about $412 million of positions were forced shut overnight, even as funds took in $118.8 million on Tuesday.
🎬 Skydance is born: Paramount closed its $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery deal, leaving the new company with about $80 billion of debt.
🍺 Beer outpaced the drinkers: Constellation shipped 5.5% more beer while depletions fell 0.6%, and the shares fell 2.7% after hours.
🤖 No AI safety guarantees: OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google all declined to promise New York’s council their AI agents are always safe.
🔍 Bond market raised rates: the 10-year climbed 0.30 points since the Fed’s September rise, with almost none of it inflation fear.
📈 10-year clears its 2007 line: Chart of the Day covers 5.20%, the 6.74% line overhead and the 40-year downtrend that broke in 2022.
🧠 One Big Thing
Interest rates are going up around the world. India raised its rate on Wednesday for the first time since 2023. Japan, Australia, the eurozone and the US have all raised theirs since 10 September. The 10-year Treasury yield was back above 5.3% on Wednesday morning, close to Monday’s 52-week closing high, even with the S&P 500 at a record. The Fed’s minutes at 7pm UK, 2pm in New York, show how many officials wanted to go further in September. September’s US inflation figures on 14 October are the next test.
⚖️ Fear & Greed
📉 The Number That Matters
25%
Only about 25% of S&P 500 stocks traded above their 50-day average on Tuesday, the day the index closed at a record 7,818.93. In mid-August that share was about 70%.
⚔️ Winners vs Losers
🟢 Top Gainers
No major winners today.
🔴 Top Losers
CRBU 0.00%↑ -39.07% Caribou Biosciences, Inc. collapsed after stopping development of its two lead off-the-shelf CAR-T programmes, vispa-cel and CB-011, and starting a review that could end in a merger or sale of the company. Management blamed tough financing conditions for this type of cell therapy and will cut staff and costs, mostly by the end of the fourth quarter.
BULL 0.00%↑ -17.72% Webull Corporation sank after the House Select Committee on the CCP concluded that the brokerage’s links to China pose a national security risk to US investors, citing its ownership, technology and data flows. The panel found that 62% of Webull’s global workforce sits in its mainland China subsidiary, though it did not establish that Beijing had accessed US customer data.
LRCX 0.00%↑ -2.96% Lam Research Corporation extended Tuesday’s 3.44% slide as rising Treasury yields and oil prices weighed on chip stocks, eating into a 10% one-month gain ahead of its October 21 earnings.
📊 Market Snapshot
Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin (BTC): $83,701 (▼2.15%)
Ethereum (ETH): $2,577 (▼4.48%)
XRP: $1.45 (▼3.45%)
Equity Indices (Futures):
S&P 500: 7,849 (▼0.32%)
NASDAQ 100: 31,264 (▼0.70%)
FTSE 100: 10,474 (▼0.56%)
Commodities & Bonds:
10-Year US Treasury Yield: 5.34% (▲0.96%)
Oil (WTI): $90 (▲0.42%)
Gold: $4,119 (▼1.06%)
Silver: $60.11 (▼2.00%)
Data as of: UK: 12:27 BST / US: 07:27 EDT / Asia (Tokyo): 20:27 JST
✅ 5 Things to Know
🌍 India joined the rate raisers hours before the Fed minutes
5.50%. That is India’s new policy rate after the Reserve Bank of India raised it by a quarter point today its first rise since February 2023. The vote was unanimous. The bank changed its stance to “calibrated tightening” and lifted its inflation forecast for the year to March 2027 to 5.2%. It also raised its growth forecast to 7.1%. The dollar climbed to 96.70 rupees, its highest since late May, FXStreet reported. Business Today The Sunday Guardian
India joins 4 other big central banks that have raised rates since 10 September. The European Central Bank lifted its deposit rate to 2.50% on 10 September. The Federal Reserve followed on 16 September with its first rise since 2023, to a range of 3.75% to 4.00%. The Bank of Japan went to 1.25% on 18 September, its highest since 1995. Australia raised its cash rate to 4.60% on 30 September, its fourth rise this year. The Reserve Bank of Australia named higher energy prices and firms raising their own prices among its reasons. CommBank The Nation
The 10-year Treasury yield was back above 5.3% on Wednesday morning, after closing at 5.27% on Tuesday. Treasury sells 10-year notes at 6pm UK, which is 1pm in New York. The minutes of the Fed’s September meeting follow at 7pm UK, 2pm in New York.
Sensei’s Insight: India, Japan, Australia, Europe and the US have all raised rates inside a month. Each of them is fighting prices. India and Australia both pointed at energy. What I am watching in the minutes is how often Fed officials named oil as a reason to keep going.
📈 A record high carried by a few big names
The S&P 500 closed above 7,800 for the first time on Tuesday, up 0.58% at 7,818.93. It was the index’s first record close since August. The Nasdaq rose 0.45% to 27,599.79, a second record in a row, and the Dow added 0.49% to 51,521.28. Chipmakers did the lifting. Marvell rose 7.14% on bullish AI forecasts, AMD gained 2.80% and touched a new high, and Nvidia edged up 0.14% to another all-time high. TheStreet
Most stocks sat it out. Only about 25% of S&P 500 companies traded above their 50-day moving average on Tuesday, Yahoo Finance reported. That average is simply the mean closing price over the last 50 sessions, and a stock above it has been rising lately. Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft alone make up more than 21% of the index. Yahoo Finance
Is 25% low? It is. In mid-August about 70% of the index sat above that line. By 2 October, new 52-week lows had outnumbered new highs for 10 straight sessions, TheStreet reported. A market-cap weighted index lets a handful of giants carry the headline level while 3 in 4 members drift. TheStreet
Sensei’s Insight: A record that only a quarter of the index joined is a record built on a few giant companies. If the chips keep winning, the headline keeps rising. If they stumble, there is little underneath to catch it. What I am watching is whether that 25% starts to climb.
🚀 SpaceX wants to borrow $40 billion for Nvidia chips
$40 billion. That is how much SpaceX is in talks to raise from banks and investors to buy chips from Nvidia, Bloomberg reported late on Tuesday, following a Financial Times report. The FT said the plan is about $10 billion of bank loans and $30 billion of investment-grade debt, with Apollo Global Management leading and the deal expected to close in 2027. Pimco is among the investors looking at it. The talks are at an early stage and could end without a deal, people familiar with them said. Bloomberg
Bloomberg put it among the biggest debt financings yet for the AI buildout. It is one of several. Broadcom’s banks have started gathering $60 billion of fresh AI chip financing to benefit Anthropic and other companies, Bloomberg reported on 2 October. Musk said last month that Colossus 2, the Memphis computing cluster built by his AI business, runs 110,000 Nvidia GB200 chips and 440,000 GB300s, with 220,000 more GB300s due within days and another 220,000 in November.
SpaceX shares finished Tuesday’s session at $171.92, then fell 1.2% to $169.79 after hours once the report landed. Nvidia rose fractionally. The next block of SpaceX shares locked up since the listing becomes free to trade on Friday 9 October.
Sensei’s Insight: Who pays for the AI boom? More and more, lenders do. SpaceX wants $40 billion of debt to buy chips from a single supplier. What I am watching is the interest rate Apollo and Pimco ask for, because that price is the lenders’ read on the risk.
🌀 A Gulf storm and Houthi strikes lifted Brent above $101
Brent crude rose 0.92% to $101.51 a barrel early on Wednesday, and West Texas crude rose 0.92% to $90.25, Business Standard reported. The rise came from 2 new threats. A storm in the Gulf of Mexico is forecast to become the first Atlantic hurricane of 2026, with offshore fields there pumping about 15% of US crude. Yemen’s Houthis also targeted Saudi airports at Jazan and Najran on Monday evening. Business Standard
Tropical Depression Nine is forecast to approach the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi on Friday, where 6 refineries run by Shell, Valero, Marathon, PBF and Chevron sit in its path. No workers had been taken off any of the 371 staffed Gulf platforms by Tuesday, Fox Weather reported. In 2021, Hurricane Ida shut more than 90% of Gulf oil output for a time. Fox Weather
Why does a storm in Louisiana matter as much as a strait in the Gulf? Refineries turn crude into petrol and diesel. A storm that shuts them can lift fuel prices even while crude supply holds up.
Sensei’s Insight: On Tuesday the story was a Saudi price cut and Gulf crude moving again. Now a storm is heading for the refineries that make America’s fuel. Aramco’s boss already said fuel has risen faster than crude. What I am watching is whether platforms start evacuating before Friday.
🪙 Bitcoin lost $412 million of bets in 20 minutes
It took 20 minutes. Between 2:45am and 3:10am UK on Wednesday, which was late Tuesday evening in New York, bitcoin fell from $85,341 to $83,577. About $412.62 million of crypto positions were forced shut in that hour, 97% of them bets on rising prices, News.Bitcoin.com reported. Ether dropped below $2,600 and XRP slipped to $1.43. News.Bitcoin.com
A forced close is called a liquidation. When a trader has borrowed to bet on a rise and the price falls far enough, the exchange closes the position automatically. Each forced sale pushes the price lower, which trips the next one. That is how bitcoin moved about 2% in 20 minutes with no headline behind it.
The fund buyers had come back. US spot bitcoin ETFs took in $118.8 million on Tuesday, Farside data showed, after $89.8 million of outflows on Monday. Bitcoin traded near $83,850 later on Wednesday morning, down about 2.5%, close to the bottom of the $83,000 to $87,000 range it has held for 2 weeks, CoinDesk reported. CoinDesk
Sensei’s Insight: On Tuesday I said I was watching whether the inflows came back. They did, $118.8 million of them, and the price still fell overnight. Funds bought by day and borrowed bets were flushed by night. What I am watching is the $83,000 floor of the 2-week range.
Stories You Might Have Missed
🎬 Skydance starts life with $80 billion of debt
Paramount closed its $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, and the combined company now trades as Skydance under the ticker SKYD in New York. It owns 2 major film studios, CBS, CNN, HBO and the Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services. It also carries about $80 billion of debt. Forbes reported that under the financing terms the company has to cut that substantially by 2029, or Larry Ellison, the chief executive’s father, covers the shortfall himself. The shares were down 2.56% in Tuesday trading, Reuters reported. Investing.com Forbes
🍺 Constellation shipped more beer than drinkers bought
Constellation Brands, which sells Modelo and Corona in the US, beat forecasts on Tuesday. Comparable earnings came in at $3.74 a share against $3.61 expected, on sales of $2.63 billion, up 6%. Beer shipments to distributors rose 5.5%. Depletions, the cases distributors actually sold on to shops and bars, fell 0.6%. When shipments run ahead of depletions, distributors are holding beer that has not yet sold. The full-year earnings range of $11.20 to $11.90 a share has a midpoint below the $11.72 analysts expected, and the shares fell 2.7% after hours. Investing.com Constellation Brands
🤖 4 AI firms declined to promise their agents are safe
New York City Council members asked OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google on Monday to guarantee that their AI agents would always follow safety guardrails. All 4 declined. “It is not possible for me to commit or guarantee that any technology is without risk,” said OpenAI’s Morgan Dwyer. Google’s Alice Friend said promising perfection “would not be possible with any product on the market.” AI agents are programs that carry out tasks for a user, and they are spreading fast. Meta’s Muse agent app passed 5 million downloads within 22 days of its 8 September launch. Fox News The Daily Upside
🔍 Deep Dive - The Bond Market Raised Rates Again Without the Fed
The Fed raised rates once in September. Bond investors have quietly done it again since. The minutes show whether the Fed thinks that is enough.