Pre-market market trends
1. On August 25 (Tuesday), the futures of the three major US stock indexes rose sharply before the US stock market. As of press release, Dow futures were up 0.52%, S&P 500 futures were up 0.45%, and NASDAQ futures were up 0.95%.
2. As of press release, the German DAX index rose 0.69%, the British FTSE 100 index rose 0.11%, the French CAC40 index rose 0.29%, and the European Stoxx 50 index rose 0.42%.
3. As of press release, WTI crude oil fell 3.56% to $81.98 per barrel. Brent crude oil fell 3.20% to $87.64 per barrel.
Market news
The US renewed sanctions against Iraq, and Bezent warned all countries to cut off economic and trade exchanges with Iran. US Treasury Secretary Bezent announced a new round of sanctions against Iran, warning all countries doing business with Iran to sever financial ties; otherwise, they will face retaliation from the US side. This time, no specific countries subject to secondary sanctions have been named. Iran fought back harshly, warning that it would escalate severe countermeasures and regard cooperating with US sanctions as an act of war; the Speaker of Iran's parliament said that its trading partners would ignore US pressure. The UAE has announced the suspension of all economic, trade and financial exchanges with Iran; a high-level Pakistani delegation visited Tehran to push the US and Iran back to the negotiation table.
The big day is yet to come! Bessent: Increased repurchases of long-term bonds have not yet begun, and there is no intention to adjust the scale of bond sales. US Treasury Secretary Bessent said on Monday that although the US Treasury has decided to increase the repurchase scale of 10-30 year US Treasury bonds, regular bond sales, including long-term bond sales, will continue according to the original plan. At the press conference on Monday on the theme of Iran's sanctions, when asked about the Ministry of Finance's future bond repurchase plans and bid sales scale, Bezent said that the department will “continue to implement the regular bid plan announced in early August.” He also indicated that no adjustments will be made until the next so-called quarterly refinancing announcement is issued in early November.
Bezent's former mentor criticized: it was a mistake to buy back US bonds! Defying fundamentals and depressing returns “will eventually fail.” Hedge fund veteran Stanley Druckenmiller publicly criticized US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's plan to reduce yields by buying long-term treasury bonds, saying bluntly that the operation was a “wrong move.” Drucken Miller believes that the current rise in long-term borrowing costs reflects deeper structural problems, including continuing high inflationary pressure, widening fiscal deficits, and huge national debt of about 40 trillion US dollars. He warned that artificially lowering long-term yields would only slow down the much-needed fiscal reform process, and called treasury bond yields “the only remaining key fiscal discipline tool.”
The AI fund that was taken over at a discount by Citadel was investigated by the SEC. According to reports, the US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the recent collapse of the AI hedge fund Situational Awareness and issuing subpoenas to major Wall Street banks involved in the fund's transactions and providing leveraged funds. According to people familiar with the matter, the SEC requested the bank to provide the fund's transaction time points and information relating to its communication with lenders about the borrowed funds, and required the preservation of all data relating to the fund. The SEC said the investigation is still in its early stages, which doesn't mean there will necessarily be penalties. Situational Awareness has also not been charged with a violation. According to the fund, it will “fully cooperate with any regulatory requirements.”
The war in Iran has intensified cost pressure, and American “granary” farmers are in the worst crisis in 40 years. According to reports, US corn belt farmers say they are facing the worst crisis in 40 years. After Trump launched a war against Iran, the cost of diesel and fertilizer skyrocketed, pushing food farmers to the brink of survival. A recent study by the United States Federation of Farm Bureaus shows that without government aid, farmers growing nine major crops, including corn, will lose a total of 31 billion US dollars this year and 32 billion US dollars in 2027. As key midterm elections approach, these economic pressures are also affecting voter sentiment in the US agricultural states.
The end of the war? The United States plans to redeploy diplomats to the Middle East embassies. According to an internal US State Department document, US diplomats previously evacuated may return to their respective positions in the Middle East as early as this week, which indicates that Washington does not expect the full outbreak of the Iran conflict again. Dan Shapiro, who served as the US ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration and a Department of Defense official responsible for Middle East affairs during the Biden administration, said, “Restoring the staffing of some of the evacuated diplomatic agencies shows that the government believes the war is nearing its end.”
Trump: US tariffs on Canadian automobile and steel imports will be raised to 50%. US President Trump wrote: Canada has been taking advantage of the US for many years. From January 1, 2027, tariffs on all (Canadian) cars, trucks, whether large or small, as well as auto parts and steel will be raised to 50%. Furthermore, Trump also said that the US is seriously considering changing the name of Lake Ontario (Lake Ontario) to “Lake America” (Lake America) because we don't expect to do much business with Ontario in the future.
Individual stock news
Meta (META.US) plans to launch the “HATCH” AI proxy platform in the next few weeks. According to reports, Meta plans to launch its consumer-oriented OpenClaw AI assistant (internal code name: Hatch) as early as the next few weeks, and plans to launch its latest AI model “Watermelon” in October. Hatch is part of Zuckerberg's ambition to monetize the company's huge investment in AI and expand diversified revenue streams beyond advertising. According to previous reports, Meta has considered using a tiered pricing system, which includes charging up to $199.99 for the product's monthly premium subscription, which will include higher usage limits. According to reports, Hatch has been trained to access websites such as DoorDash, Etsy, Reddit, Yelp, and Outlook.
South Korea's SK Hynix (SKHY.US) union vetoed the salary agreement, and more than half of the employees voted against it. According to people familiar with the matter, SK Hynix union members vetoed a temporary salary agreement on Tuesday, and more than 50% of voting employees opposed the agreement. Of the 15,045 employees who participated in the vote, 50.08% voted against it. The agreement was reached last week and includes a 6.3% salary increase and revisions to SK Hynix's profit sharing bonus program. Of these, 40% of the bonus will be paid in cash and 60% will be distributed in the form of company shares.
Apple (AAPL.US) may launch a new Mac mini before the September press conference. People familiar with the matter revealed that Apple is preparing to launch the first new version of the Mac mini in nearly two years. The new Mac mini will be unveiled in the next few days as soon as possible, possibly earlier than the September press conference. Apple has tested versions equipped with both M5 and M6 processor chips. This upgrade comes at a time when demand for the current Mac mini has increased dramatically, and the product has become a popular tool for running artificial intelligence applications locally. The shortage of memory chips has also made it harder for Apple to maintain an inventory supply of this product.
Market capitalization fluctuations of Nvidia (NVDA.US) after the announcement of results are expected to reach US$280 billion, lower than the forecast before the May earnings report. Options traders expect that after Nvidia announced its second-quarter results after the US stock market on Wednesday, the stock price is expected to rise/fall 5.4% on Thursday, lower than the 6.5% fluctuation implied by options before the May earnings report was released. Based on an expected margin of 5.4%, its market value is likely to change by approximately US$280 billion. According to data from options analysis company ORATS, this expected fluctuation is still significantly lower than the 7.4% average after the past 12 quarterly earnings reports.
Volkswagen (VWAGY.US) plans to lay off 50,000 employees, making it the largest restructuring plan in history. On August 25, Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume recently revealed that the company has formulated the largest transformation plan in the history of the Volkswagen Group. Potential measures include cutting another 50,000 jobs and splitting some business units. However, the layoff plan was questioned by the German trade union. There is still room for competition between the two sides, and the complete plan will need to complete multiple rounds of negotiations between the supervisory board and the trade union before it is finally implemented.
SpaceX (SPCX.US)'s first Starmind AI satellites were launched ahead of schedule until the end of 2027, and teamed up with Nvidia to accelerate the development of orbital data center tracks. On Monday, Musk announced on the X platform that SpaceX's first StarMind AI satellites equipped with Nvidia chips will be launched for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2027 and will reach a “significant scale” in 2028. This schedule is ahead of the 2028 plan previously disclosed in the prospectus. On the same day, Nvidia officially announced that SpaceXAI will deploy its next-generation Vera CPU to accelerate proxy AI workloads and launch an optimized version of the Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale system into orbit as the computing power core of the first-generation Starmind satellite.
Tesla (TSLA.US)'s ten-year “solar roof tile dream” has officially come to an end: due to unsustainable financial discontinuation of production, the energy strategy has completely switched to traditional photovoltaics and energy storage. After nearly a decade of commercialization trials, Tesla's iconic Solar Roof (Solar Roof) project officially came to an end this week. According to media reports citing sources, Tesla has officially ceased production of Solar Roof products and notified its network of certified third-party installers that it will no longer supply solar roof tiles in the future, leaving only the supply and service of traditional solar panels.
Jintian (GFI.US) net profit surged 81% in the first half of the year, and the double rise in gold prices and production led to a doubling of the mid-term dividend. South African gold producer Jintian said that benefiting from the rise in gold production and gold prices, its net profit surged by 81%, and the company's dividend more than doubled in the first half of the year. According to financial reports, Jintian's revenue for the first half of the year was US$5.937 billion, up 79% year on year; core profit after deducting non-recurring profit and loss reached US$1,855 billion, up 81% year on year. Jintian said that the company raised the dividend per share to 16.25 rand. Gold production reached 1.27 million ounces in the first half of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 12%. The average dollar price achieved by the Group for the six months ending June 30, 2026 was 4,678 US dollars/ounce, a year-on-year increase of 51%.
VIPS.US (VIPS.US) had net revenue of 24.7 billion yuan in the second quarter of 2026, and the number of SVIP users continued to grow. According to the latest financial report released by Vipshop, net revenue for the second quarter was 24.7 billion yuan (RMB, same below); non-GAAP net profit was 392 million yuan, compared to 2.1 billion yuan in the same period last year, mainly due to one-time withholding tax adjustments related to historical dividend distributions. Meanwhile, the GMV for the second quarter was 50.6 billion yuan, and the number of orders was 182 million. The number of Vipshop Super VIP (SVIP) users continues to grow steadily and has now surpassed 10 million.
Bank of Montreal (BMO.US) plans to launch share buybacks. Quarterly results were dragged down by asset sales, but core business performance was strong. Bank of Montreal's net profit for the third quarter fell to 1.75 billion Canadian dollars year-on-year, mainly due to one-time expenses of 962 million Canadian dollars due to the sale of transportation and supplier financing businesses and the withdrawal of 138 branches in the US. However, adjusted earnings per share reached 3.96 Canadian dollars, higher than market expectations; total revenue increased 10% to 9.9 billion Canadian dollars, profit before tax provision in all business segments set records, and capital markets, wealth management, and commercial loans grew steadily. Credit provisions of $722 million fell short of expectations. Additionally, the bank announced plans to repurchase up to 25 million shares of common stock.
TOUR.US (TOUR.US) Q2 revenue increased 8.76% year over year, with earnings per share of $0.01. Tuniu reported second-quarter earnings of $0.01 per share, a sharp drop of 96.67% from $0.30 in the same period last year. Meanwhile, the company achieved revenue of 204.74 million US dollars in the current quarter, up 8.76% year over year, compared to 18.825 million US dollars in the same period last year. Looking ahead, the company expects third-quarter revenue of between $29.786 million and $31.274 million.
Ehang Intelligence (EH.US) Q2 losses narrowed and exceeded expectations, but revenue declined sharply year over year. Ehang Intelligence announced its latest quarterly earnings report. The loss per share was 0.12 US dollars, and the market generally expected a loss of 0.15 US dollars. However, compared with earnings of 0.02 US dollars per share in the same period last year, the performance turned into a year-on-year loss, a decrease of 700%. The company achieved sales of US$114.79 million for the quarter, far below market expectations of US$16.620 million; compared with revenue of US$20.543 million in the same period last year, there was a sharp decline of 44.12%.
Key economic data and event forecasts
20:15 Beijing time: The US ADP employment week announced changes for the week ending August 8.
22:00 Beijing time: The US Chamber of Commerce Consumer Confidence Index for August and the total annualized sales of new homes in the US after the July seasonal adjustment.
04:30 Beijing time the next day: Changes in US API crude oil inventories for the week ending August 21.
Performance Forecast
Wednesday morning: Zoom (ZM.US), JOYY.US, QFIN.US, TEHAI (HDL.US)
Wednesday pre-market: SMARK (SJM.US), Kohl's (KSS.US), Ideal Auto (LI.US), Tiger Securities (TIGR.US), Jinko Energy (JKS.US)