☕️ [Task Coins Giveaway] Daily Market Talk — Warsh's Hawkish Turn Flips the Rate Odds

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a hawkish surprise at Friday's Jackson Hole keynote, warning inflation trends haven't "meaningfully improved" and pushing September rate-hike odds from about a third to a coin flip. The shock rippled well beyond Wall Street, even pulling Nvidia and AMD lower despite blowout AI earnings. Over the weekend, the US struck Iran and Trump struck a major Venezuela oil deal. Let's dig in 👇

💬 Warsh flipped rate-hike odds to a coin toss without committing to anything — is that discipline, or dodging the question?

📊 Quick Recap — What Moved & Why

🇺🇸 US — Warsh's Hawkish Turn Flips the Rate Odds

🔑 Key Event: Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first Jackson Hole keynote turned hawkish Friday: he said summer's cooler inflation readings don't show underlying trends have "meaningfully improved," and stopped short of forward guidance, saying he's "committed to a discipline, not a decision." Markets read it as a warning — September rate-hike odds jumped to about 50% (a coin flip) from roughly a third beforehand. US indices closed mixed Friday ($S&P 500(.SPX.US) -0.25% to 7,711.76, $NASDAQ Composite Index(.IXIC.US) -0.52% to 26,402.42, $Dow Jones Industrial Average(.DJI.US) -0.02% to 53,559.99), though all three still logged a weekly gain.

@FaithAnchor : Warsh is playing it differently from Powell: fewer clues, no dots, no promises. The next rate move comes down to the data — and markets have to guess.

👀 Other to Watch

• $NVIDIA(NVDA.US) → fell -4.57% Friday despite blowout Q2 revenue ($96.2B, +106% YoY), after disclosing $530.5B in off-balance-sheet commitments extending past 2032 and pausing a revenue-sharing program with AI cloud partners over antitrust concerns; Michael Burry calls it "circular financing" and has built a 21%+ short position across Nvidia and AI-capex peers. AMD fell -2.3% in sympathy.
• Optical/photonics selloff → $Marvell Tech(MRVL.US) sank -10.3% despite beating Q2 estimates, as investors questioned how slowly its Google deal will pay off; $AXT(AXTI.US) (-12.4%) and $Lumentum(LITE.US) (-6.4%) fell alongside it.
• Storage chips → $Micron Tech(MU.US) and $SK Hynix(SKHY.US) each dipped less than 0.5%.
• AI mega-caps diverged from chip suppliers → $Amazon(AMZN.US) (+4.0%), $Meta Platforms(META.US), and $Alphabet(GOOGL.US) also rose Friday, while a federal judge permanently blocked the Pentagon's ban on Anthropic's products, ruling its "supply chain risk" designation unconstitutional.

🇸🇬 Singapore — STI Steady as the Real Story Is Macro, Not Local

🔑 Key Event: $FTSE Straits Times Index(STI.SG) rose 0.28% to 5,699.93 Friday, and was trading about 0.3% higher near 5,715-5,720 Monday morning. Warsh's hawkish surprise favors banks (which benefit from higher-for-longer rates) over REITs, while $DBS(D05.SG), $OCBC Bank(O39.SG), and $UOB(U11.SG) traded steadily this week.

@FreeBuild : Fed Chair Warsh's latest comments suggest interest rates may stay higher for longer, with a September hike becoming a real possibility. For retail investors, this could mean short-term volatility in Singapore banks, REITs and high-dividend stocks, while cash and bonds become more attractive.

👀 Other to Watch

• China's August PMI → manufacturing PMI rose to 49.8 (from 49.2 in July, a third straight monthly improvement) though still in contraction; non-manufacturing held steady at 49.0.
• $First Resources(EB5.SG) → H1 net profit jumped 57.4% YoY to US$234.9M, with its interim dividend nearly doubled to S$0.08/share, payable Sept 10.

🇭🇰 HK/China — Alibaba Holds Its Bounce, Gold Miners Slide

🔑 Key Event: $BABA-W(09988.HK) is trading around HK$112.70 Monday morning, down about 1.05% intraday — still below its pre-placement levels even as last week's insider-buying bounce (Jack Ma, Tsai, and Wu buying a combined HK$800M+) has partially held. $Hang Seng Index(00HSI.HK) closed essentially flat Friday (+0.07% to 25,584.79, since Warsh's hawkish surprise landed after HK's close), then fell 0.64% to around 25,420 Monday morning on a sector-specific gold-miner selloff, not a broad Fed-driven rout.

👀 Other to Watch

• Gold miners → $ZIJIN MINING(02899.HK) fell 4.6%, $ZHAOJIN MINING(01818.HK) dropped 7.3%, and Lao Feng Xiang fell 8.3% Monday as gold pulled back from its highs.
• Shein → confirmed to debut on the HKEX Tuesday under ticker 00625, with its final IPO price set today, valuing the fast-fashion giant at up to ~US$27B.
• $CXMT(688825.SH) → China's top DRAM maker posted H1 revenue up 874% YoY to RMB150.3B, swinging to a RMB77.6B profit from a year-ago loss.

🌍 Other

• 🇮🇷🇺🇸 The US struck two Iranian missile launchers on Larak Island Sunday; Iran's Revolutionary Guard claims it retaliated against a US base. Iran and Oman reached an understanding on Hormuz passage, though Iran says it won't act on it unless the US moves first.
• 🇻🇪🇺🇸 Trump announced what he called the "biggest oil deal in history" with Venezuela — majority control of 65B barrels of proven reserves over a 25-year term.
• 🌍 Gold pushed toward $4,450-4,500/oz this month, lifting $VanEck Gold Miners ETF(GDX.US) roughly 36% in August, as easing Hormuz tensions also helped oil recover.

📅 Key Events Tonight / This Week

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🚫 No duplicates · ⏰ Deadline: Aug 31, 2026, 11:59 PM SGT

Not investment advice, just market talk 🙏