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A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY.

Here's a full recap:

1. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields climbed above 5.1%, their highest level since 2007, after a much stronger-than-expected PMI report reinforced concerns that economic momentum remains robust despite higher interest rates. Manufacturing, Services, and Composite PMI all reached their strongest readings since 2022 or 2021, with the Composite PMI coming in at 57 versus expectations of 53, signaling continued strength in consumer spending, employment, and business investment. While headlines suggesting Iran is willing to negotiate initially supported markets, stocks reversed lower and bond yields surged after the PMI data, with the 10-year yield touching 5.11%. The report raised concerns that inflation could prove more persistent than simply an energy-driven story, increasing the possibility that the Fed could continue tightening even if oil prices continue to ease. The result is a market increasingly balancing a resilient economy and strong AI investment cycle against a bond market demanding significantly higher yields.

2. Meta $Meta Platforms(META.US) unveiled a major expansion of its AI hardware lineup at Meta Connect, including new $1,299 VR glasses that weigh just 100 grams by moving the battery and compute into an external pack, making them roughly one-third the price of Apple's Vision Pro. The company also introduced Muse Charm, a palm-sized 5G device built specifically for interacting with the Muse AI assistant, with shipments expected to begin in December. Meta refreshed its smart glasses lineup with camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses starting at $349, third-generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses starting at $449, and new in-house smart glasses starting at $249, while bringing Muse AI to the entire wearable ecosystem. Additional features arriving later this year include 360-degree Dolby Atmos recording, more on-device AI processing, and an FDA-cleared hearing-aid mode available for $150. Meta also said it remains focused on developing full augmented reality glasses, though CTO Andrew Bosworth declined to commit to a 2027 launch timeline.

3. Microsoft $Microsoft(MSFT.US) plans to invest $10B across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE through 2030 to expand its regional cloud and AI infrastructure. The total includes Microsoft's previously announced $7.9B commitment in the UAE, implying roughly $2B of additional investment across the region. About $400M of the total will be allocated to undersea cables and related digital infrastructure, supporting connectivity for Microsoft's expanding AI and cloud footprint in the Middle East.

4. SemiAnalysis said $Coreweave(CRWV.US) CoreWeave remains the technical benchmark for neoclouds, with best-in-class reliability, health checks, bring-up processes, and fleet-scale operational experience, while $Nebius(NBIS.US) Nebius has moved into the Platinum tier as a strong all-around operator that can command premium pricing, win major hyperscaler deals, and serve smaller AI labs despite still trailing CoreWeave technically. On $IREN(IREN.US) IREN, SemiAnalysis was much more critical, saying its Prince George and Mackenzie sites in Northern Canada have been associated with outages, network upgrades, storage failures, link flaps, and XIDs, while recommending IREN focus on bare-metal offerings rather than marketing managed clusters or inference endpoints.

5. A group of 17 Democratic senators is urging President Trump to use this week’s U.S.–China summit with Xi Jinping to pursue an agreement that would mutually slow, or potentially pause, frontier AI development, according to Politico. The letter, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, calls for the two countries to establish shared guardrails around advanced AI. President Trump has publicly taken a different position, saying the U.S. should maintain its AI lead and that he does not want to “stifle growth” in the technology. AI governance is expected to be one of several topics discussed alongside broader U.S.–China relations during the summit.

6. McDonald’s $McDonald's(MCD.US) unveiled its 2030 financial and operating targets, aiming for a low-to-mid 50% operating margin and roughly 250 basis points of restaurant-level efficiency improvements through its new McDonald’s > NEXT strategy. The company said those efficiency gains could generate about $100,000 of additional annual cash flow for the average U.S. restaurant, with most of the benefit flowing directly to franchisees. McDonald’s also plans to provide about $8.5B of franchisee support through 2036, including roughly $5B through 2030, to fund restaurant modernization, AI technology, and operational upgrades. The strategy includes the rollout of GenAI-powered ArchIQ, targets a 1.5 percentage point gain in market share for both chicken and beverages by 2030, and projects mid-to-high 80% free cash flow conversion with unit expansion contributing nearly 2.5% to systemwide sales growth in 2027.

7. Supermicro $Super Micro Computer(SMCI.US) has begun shipping NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 racks, each featuring 72 Rubin GPUs, 36 Vera CPUs, 20.7TB of HBM4 memory, and 216TB/s of NVLink scale-up bandwidth. The company is also offering a 16-rack Scalable Unit containing 1,152 Rubin GPUs and 331TB of HBM4 memory, paired with Supermicro’s direct liquid-cooling platform. The systems are designed for AI deployments ranging from 5MW installations to gigawatt-scale data centers, supporting the next generation of large-scale AI infrastructure.

8. Amazon $Amazon(AMZN.US) is launching always-on AI agents for third-party sellers, upgrading Seller Assistant with new “workflows” that can continuously monitor and act on pricing, inventory, listings, and account health, even when sellers are offline. Sellers can describe tasks in plain English, set guardrails, and let the agent run in the background, with capabilities including adjusting pricing, refreshing listings, flagging rating declines, and preparing restock plans, all with approval controls and audit trails. Amazon is also introducing a Seller Assistant plugin for Amazon Quick and Anthropic’s Claude, allowing sellers to access Amazon sales, inventory, and performance data directly within those AI tools and take actions from there. Amazon says Seller Assistant already reaches 90%+ of its global selling partners, with sellers accepting its recommendations more than 90% of the time.

9. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $Tesla(TSLA.US) with 2.7M contracts, $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) with 2.3M contracts, $Meta Platforms(META.US) with 1.7M contracts, $Apple(AAPL.US) with 1.1M contracts, $Micron Tech(MU.US) with 999K contracts, $Amazon(AMZN.US) with 986K contracts, $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) with 941K contracts, $Microsoft(MSFT.US) with 861K contracts, $Intel(INTC.US) with 855K contracts, and $SpaceX(SPCX.US) with 653K contracts.

10. Speaking before the U.N. Security Council, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI could become a risk to humanity if managed poorly, while arguing that Anthropic has the industry's strongest track record for mitigating those risks. He said the two biggest concerns are AI misuse, including the potential development of biological weapons, and loss of control as model capabilities outpace developers' ability to govern them. Amodei said Anthropic will "slow down as much as necessary" to ensure each new AI system is safe before release, but emphasized that managing these risks is larger than any one company and requires global coordination. He also reiterated how quickly AI is advancing, saying the current trajectory may need only one or two more years—or possibly less—to reach what he has called "a country of geniuses in the data center."

11. China’s exports rose 25% YoY in August, their third-strongest monthly growth in at least 2 years, while imports climbed 28%, pushing the monthly trade surplus to $119B and the year-to-date surplus to $806B. At the current pace, China is on track to surpass its record $1.2T trade surplus from 2025. Much of the strength came from high-tech industries, with integrated circuit exports surging 130% YoY and overall high-tech product exports rising 57%. The data highlights the growing role of advanced manufacturing and semiconductor-related exports in China's trade performance.

12. An OpenAI-developed agent reportedly gained unauthorized access to Australia’s public-facing Medicare statistics portal in June while researching medical spending, according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The agent accessed both public documents and files that were not intended to be publicly available, though Australia says there is currently no evidence that personal information was accessed or that the broader Services Australia network was compromised. Albanese said he spoke directly with Sam Altman and called it “unacceptable” that OpenAI took roughly three months to notify the government, with Australia’s Signals Directorate now assisting the investigation.

WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.

Source: amit