Stocks Slightly Higher into Afternoon on Falling Long-Term Rates, AI-Induced Corporate Productivity Optimism, Fed Rate-Cut Hopes, Tech/Energy Sector Strength

Economic Gauges:

• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 36.4 +.01%
• US 10-Year T-Note Yield 4.03% -6.0 basis points
• 3-Month T-Bill Yield 4.03% +1.0 basis point

• China Iron Ore Spot 107.0 USD/Metric Tonne +.1%
• Dutch TTF Nat Gas(European benchmark) 33.1 euros/megawatt-hour +.6%

• Citi US Economic Surprise Index 21.2 -.6

• Citi Eurozone Economic Surprise Index 19.7 +.4 point

• Citi Emerging Markets Economic Surprise Index 12.5 -.2 point
• S&P 500 Current Quarter EPS Growth Rate YoY(497 of 500 reporting) +12.6% unch.
• S&P 500 Blended Forward 12 Months Mean EPS Estimate 291.79 +.12:  Growth Rate +11.4% unch., P/E 22.4 +.1
• S&P 500 Current Year Estimated Profit Margin 13.49% unch.
• NYSE FANG+ Current Quarter EPS Growth Rate YoY(10 of 10 reporting) +28.4% unch.
• NYSE FANG+ Blended Forward 12 Months Mean EPS Estimate 484.57 +.16: Growth Rate +18.5% unch., P/E 33.2 +.5
• Bloomberg US Financial Conditions Index .66 +4.0 basis points
• Bloomberg Euro-Zone Financial Conditions Index 1.54 +5.0 basis points
• Bloomberg Global Trade Policy Uncertainty Index 2.7 -.3
• US Yield Curve 50.0 basis points (2s/10s) -3.25 basis points
• US Atlanta Fed GDPNow Q2 Forecast +3.1% +10.0 basis points
• US Recession Within 6 Months Probability(3M/18M Forward Yld Curve Spread) 41.6% -1.4 percentage points

• Cleveland Fed Inflation Nowcast Core PCE YoY +2.95% unch.: CPI YoY +2.84% unch.
• 1-Year TIPS Spread 2.69 unch.
• 10-Year TIPS Spread 2.36 -1.0 basis point
• Highest target rate probability for Oct. 29th FOMC meeting: 73.3% (+.1 percentage point) chance of 3.75%-4.0%. Highest target rate probability for Dec. 10th meeting: 66.2%(+1.6 percentage points) chance of 3.5%-3.75%. (current target rate is 4.25-4.5%)
  

Overseas Futures:

• Nikkei 225 Futures: Indicating -47 open in Japan 
• China A50 Futures: Indicating -51 open in China

• DAX Futures: Indicating -8 open in Germany

Portfolio:

• Higher: On gains in my industrial/financial/tech/utility sector longs
• Disclosed Trades: Added to my (IWM)/(QQQ) hedges
• Market Exposure: Moved to 75% Net Long

Bear Radar

Style Underperformer:

• Large-Cap Value -.2%
  

Sector Underperformers:

• 1) Medical Equipment -2.5% 2) Computer Services -1.8% 3) Electric Vehicles -1.6%

Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume: 

• RELX, DT, AMRK, GCT, SMMT, JACK, SXT, CDNS, ACHC, AVO, ZLAB, UPST, ONC, TTD, SLNO, GSAT, RBRK, CHWY, RAPP and SNPS

Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:

• 1) SNPS 2) ORCL 3) LYV 4) SHEL 5) BITF

Stocks With Most Negative News Mentions:

• 1) SNPS 2) CHWY 3) WOLF 4) IMAB 5) SLNO

Sector ETFs With Most Negative Money Flow:

• 1) KRE 2) GDX 3) IGV 4) XLU 5) MSTY

Charts:

• ETFs Falling on Unusual Volume
• Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume

Bull Radar

Style Outperformer:

• Large-Cap Growth +.9%

Sector Outperformers:

• 1) AI/Innovation +3.9% 2) Semis +2.2% 3) Electrification +2.1%

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:

• ORCL, PBPB, WYFI, TVTX, DAKT, CRWV, SOC, SEI, ATRO, BE, AAOI, AMRC, VRT, LE, INOD, APLD, AMLX, CORZ, TSSI, VST, ARM, MOD, CEG, CNTA, CIFR, IAG, IREN, SUPX, LITE, VIST, CRDO, YPF, GTM, GGAL, BMA, AVGO, MTZ, PAM, EQX, LBRT, ALAB, ANET, GME, AEO, BTSG, FIX, HL, GEV, DLR, AGX, DRD, HUT, UEC, CIEN, CYD, RIOT, WLDN, WULF, PPTA, COHR, EDU, SPHR, CTRI, HMY, TSM, NVDA, ETN, BMNR, BILL, SNDK, GFI, TSEM, PENG, MU, TECX, PCG, DLO, PBR, CAL, MESO, CLS, OWL and CRC

Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:

• 1) SNPS 2) ORCL 3) NEXT 4) SHOT 5) BHF

Stocks With Most Positive News Mentions:

• 1) ORCL 2) BE 3) AVGO 4) ASST 5) WULF

Sector ETFs With Most Positive Money Flow:

• 1) ARKK 2) SMH 3) XLV 4) XLP 5) XLF

Charts:

• ETFs Rising on Unusual Volume
• Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume

Tomorrow's Earnings/Economic Releases of Note; Market Movers

Earnings of Note 
Company/Estimate 

Before the Open:

• (KR)/.99
• (LOVE)/-.70 

After the Close: 

• (ADBE)/5.18
• (RH)/3.21 

Economic Releases 

8:30 am EST

• The CPI MoM for Aug. is estimated to rise +.3% versus a +.2% gain in July.
• The CPI Ex Food and Energy MoM for Aug. is estimated to rise +.3% versus a +.3% gain in July.
• Real Avg. Weekly Earnings YoY for Aug.
• Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to fall to 235K versus 237K the prior week.
• Continuing Claims are estimated to rise to 1950K versus 1940K prior. 

12:00 pm EST

• Household Change in Net Worth for 2Q. 

2:00 pm EST

• The Federal Budget Deficit for Aug. is estimated at -$325.0B versus -$380.0B in July. 

Upcoming Splits

• None of note

Other Potential Market Movers

• The ECB meeting, 30Y T-Bond auction, IEA Monthly report, OPEC monthly report, Fed's weekly balance sheet report, weekly EIA natural gas inventory report, (ANET) analyst day, (BOX) investor meeting, (FRSH) investor day and the William Blair Energy/Power Lunch could also impact global trading tomorrow.

US Equity Market Hours

• 9:30 am - 4:00 pm EST

Mid-Day Market Internals

NYSE Composite Index:

• Volume Running +10.8% Above 100-Day Average 
• Nasdaq/NYSE Volume Ratio 16.2 +2.4
• 5 Sectors Declining, 6 Sectors Rising
• 50.6% of Issues Advancing, 47.3% Declining 
• TRIN/Arms 1.36 +44.7% 
  
• Non-Block Money Flow -$121.3M
  
• 131 New 52-Week Highs, 26 New Lows
• 58.5% (-1.3%) of Issues Above 200-day Moving Average
• Average 14-Day RSI 67.1 +2.2

Other:

• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk-Off Index 82.4 +2.0%
• Bloomberg Cyclicals/Defensives Index 255.5 -.34%
  
• Morgan Stanley Growth vs Value Index 165.0 +.9%
• CNN Fear & Greed Index 51.0 (NEUTRAL) unch.
• 1-Day Vix 9.7 +8.6%
  
• Vix 15.0 -.6%
  
• Total Put/Call .74 -11.9%

Wednesday Watch

Around X:

• @Business 

• President Donald Trump said he intends to speak to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “in the coming weeks” and expressed optimism the two leaders would be able to reach an agreement.
• Donald Trump said he’s prepared to join the European Union to impose sweeping new tariffs on India and China as he looks to ratchet up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. 
• South Korea’s benchmark stock index climbed, heading for a record close, as optimism over domestic policy reforms and positive global tailwinds help extend one of the world’s hottest equity rallies of 2025.
• Apple's newest iPhones offer enough exterior and under-the-hood updates that holdouts might be convinced to finally upgrade. Bloomberg's first impressions: 
• Soon, Robinhood’s retail traders won’t have to leave the platform to brag about their positions or post taunting memes celebrating their investment victories. The online brokerage is breaking into social media.
• Hims plans to launch offerings for men with low testosterone, marking the telehealth company’s long-awaited move into the fast-growing hormonal health category.
• Get up to speed on what's moving global markets.
• Here's what you need to know to start your day.  

• @ZeroHedge   

• Here Is The Batshit Insane Chart That Sent Oracle Stock Soaring 25% After Hours.
• This is another BLS scandal, and Trump was absolutely right to fire the BLS commissioner. What this means: 1). There was virtually no job creation in the last year of the Biden admin. 2). The Fed should have started cutting in February. (graph)
• Over 400 Genocide Scholars Say That Hamas, Not Israel, Committed Genocide.
• NATO Scrambles Jets As Russian Drones Enter Poland's Airspace Overnight.
• President @realDonaldTrump signs the most significant action in a generation to rein in misleading pharmaceutical ads.
• “Republican Rep. Randy Fine is calling for judges to face consequences if violent repeat offenders they release go on to commit new crimes.” Fair. Holding people responsible for the consequences of their actions is common sense. You are very, very underweight private prison companies. (pic)
• South Korean Companies Have Been Playing Fast And Loose With Visas, Won't Hire American Workers For US Factory Construction.
• If the Fed knew how bad the labor market truly was, it would have cut 25bps in March and another 25bps in June/July. There is every case to be made for a 50bps rate cut in Sept. Yup.
• Attention Boomers: AI-Backed Deepfake Impersonations Are Getting Harder To Detect, FBI Warns.
• Where are they now?
• And there you have it. $3.3 MILLION from left-wing NGO The MacArthur Foundation went to Mecklenburg County to “reduce the jail population”, the very county that released career criminal DeCarlos Brown 14 times. Insane. Follow the money. Democrats want criminals on the loose. 
• Supreme Court to review Trump tariffs in first week of November.
• JUST IN: HORRIFIC extended new video from multiple angles time-synced showing the stabbing of Iryna Zarutska, her collapse, and the kiIIer walking away FREELY. Listen closely: it sounds like the kiIIer says “I got that white girl.” That’d make this an anti-white HATE CRIME! No wonder they’re trying so hard to cover this up!
• Gold Spikes To Record High On BLS Bull$hit; Goldman Says "Easy Money" Has Been Made.

• @CNBC

• Asia markets set to open mostly higher ahead of key China inflation data.
• Here's why Jim Cramer thinks Casey's General Stores has more upside
  .
• Wednesday's big stock stories: What’s likely to move the market in the next trading session.
• Uranium market heats up on nuclear revival hopes.
• S&P 500 futures up slightly ahead of inflation data, Oracle forecast looks to spark AI trade: Live updates.
• OpenAI CFO says companies who are not embracing AI fast enough will 'get left behind'.
• Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Oracle, GameStop, Synopsys and more. 
• Everything Apple just announced: iPhone 17 Air, AirPods Pro 3, Apple Watch Series 11 and more.

• @TheTranscript 

• Our key takeaways from $NVDA CFO Colette Kress during the 2025 $GS Communacopia + Tech Conference: —Data center revenue (inclusive of compute and networking, excluding H20) grew 12% QoQ in Q2 FY26 and is projected to grow another 17% QoQ in Q3, even without China contributions: "...you're already starting to see a surge up in terms of the demand". —They expect global AI infrastructure capex to reach $3T–$4T by 2030: "Even our CSPs today have literally doubled the amount of capital that they are spending from what they've had just two years ago". —Inference demand is accelerating rapidly, fueled by the rise of reasoning & agentic AI models.
• $ORCL CEO: Demand > supply. "Total cloud revenue...was up 27% to $7.2B. Cloud infrastructure revenue was $3.3B, up 54% on top of the 46% growth reported in Q1 last year. OCI consumption revenue was up 57% & demand continues to dramatically outstrip supply".
• $ORCL CTO: "MultiCloud database revenue from Amazon, Google & Microsoft grew at the incredible rate of 1,529% in Q1. We expect MultiCloud revenue to grow substantially every quarter for several years as we deliver another 37 datacenters to our three Hyperscaler partners, for a total of 71."
• $ORCL CTO: Oracle’s newest enterprise applications are now fully AI-generated, not manually developed. "The latest applications that we are building, we're not building them. They're being generated by AI. And we think we're far, far ahead of any of the other application companies in terms of generating the applications."
• $ORCL CEO: "...we expect Oracle Cloud Infrastructure revenue to grow 77% to $18B this fiscal year—and then increase to $32B, $73B, $114B, and $144B over the subsequent four years. Most of the revenue in this 5-year forecast is already booked in our reported RPO." (graph)
• ORacle CEO: "We signed four multi-billion-dollar contracts with three different customers in Q1. This resulted in RPO contract backlog increasing 359% to $455B. It was an astonishing quarter—& demand for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure continues to build." $ORCL: +26% AH. (pic)

• @LauraLoomer 

• Hey Blondi @AGPamBondi. Why are you sitting on your ass twiddling your thumbs while election fraud denier @stephen_richer’s wife works inside YOUR DOJ, as I exclusively reported? Here he is attacking President Trump for suing the WSJ over their fake story accusing Trump of sending Jeffrey Epstein a birthday card he never sent. Why haven’t you fired Lindsay Lee Short from the DOJ?

• @RealMaxMaximus 

• BOOM! This is the nuclear truth that sends Big Pharma into absolute PANIC! RFK Jr. isn't just taking aim at vaccines - he's exposing the entire CORRUPT web of regulatory capture that's been poisoning America for decades. Think about it - 50% of FDA's budget comes DIRECTLY from the drug companies they're supposed to regulate! NIH scientists collect ROYALTIES on drugs they approve! It's like having the fox guard the henhouse while getting paid by the chickens. Greenwald nailed it - this isn't "scientific consensus," it's CORPORATE CONSENSUS disguised as science. (video) 

• @EricLDaugh

• HOLY CRAP! Stephen Miller just got FIRED UP about the murder of Iryna Zarutska. "That MONSTER: FOURTEEN PRIOR ARRESTS. In and out, in and out. The Democrat policies of catch and release for barbarians and SAVAGES is truly an act of terror against the American people!" "That beautiful young woman stabbed to death, murdered savagely on a subway, just trying to get home from work, fleeing war only to run into a DEMOCRAT WAR ZONE here in our country!" "It cannot be explained unless you deeply, fundamentally hate America." (video)

• @Rasmussen_Poll

• US Judicial Worshipers, Take Note. Here is an electronic voting system informing anyone with a brain that it has been hacked and illegal non-certified election software is being loaded. What courts saw this and dismissed it? Every single court level up to and including SCOTUS.

• @JeffereyJaxen

• Pfizer board Member Scott Gottlieb terrified HHS's Autism report will name known dangers of aluminum adjuvants in childhood shots.. (video)

• @charliekirk11

• As news of Iryna Zarutska's death at the hands of a career criminal in Charlotte is still fresh, Zohran Mamdani promises to empty the jails in NYC. Mamdani will spark a 1990s style crime wave in NYC and many more New Yorkers will die. We need more criminals in jail, not less. (video)

• @MatchasmMatt

• Bloom Energy $BE is up 9% after hours on the back of this news. Their partnership with Oracle looks EXTREMELY attractive given the scale up in demand Oracle just disclosed. (pic) 

• @AndersonAfDMdEP

• Pfizer Executives and Government Officials around the world - they all belong in jail for the mRNA atrocity they committed against humanity! It was an honor to have
  @naomirwolf at the EU-Parliament to present her findings of The Pfizer Papers. It was truly shocking to hear what Pfizer knew about their despicable mRNA shots right from the beginning! (video)

• @redpilldispensr

• Pediatricians typically earn $200–$600 per fully vaccinated patient, with some making more than $1 million annually. Definitely no conflict of interest there. (video)

• @stkirsch  

• 25 years ago, CDC scientists were ORDERED to DESTROY ALL STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT EVIDENCE LINKING VACCINES AND AUTISM. (video)

Night Trading 

• Asian equity indices are +.25% to +1.25% on average. 
• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 63.25 -.5 basis point.
• China Sovereign CDS 41.25 -.5 basis point.
• China Iron Ore Spot 106.9 USD/Metric Tonne -.5%. 
• Swiss Franc/Offshore Chinese Renminbi Cross 8.93 -.01%.
• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 36.44 -.02%.
• Bloomberg Global Risk-On/Risk Off Index 81.2 +.5%.
• US 10-Year Yield 4.08% -1.0 basis point.
• Volatility Index(VIX) futures 18.4 -.21%.
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures +.32%. 
• S&P 500 futures +.22%. 
• NASDAQ 100 futures +.12%.

Morning Preview Links

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are modestly higher, boosted by industrial and technology shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher.  The Portfolio is 100% net long heading into the day.