Pre-market market trends
1. On September 1 (Tuesday), the futures of the three major US stock indexes fell sharply before the US stock market. As of press release, Dow futures were down 0.48%, S&P 500 futures were down 0.43%, and NASDAQ futures were down 0.93%.
2. As of press release, the German DAX index fell 1.08%, the UK FTSE 100 index fell 0.67%, the French CAC40 index fell 0.31%, and the European Stoxx 50 index fell 0.59%.
3. As of press release, WTI crude oil rose 2.03% to $87.50 per barrel. Brent crude rose 3.89% to $91.81 per barrel.
Market news
After stopping for a month and hitting Iran again, international oil prices and US bond yields all went up. Another exchange of fire between the US and Iran after a month has raised concerns in the market. Driven by factors such as higher international oil prices and market expectations that the Fed will raise interest rates to curb inflation, the 10-year US Treasury yield rose more than 2 basis points to 4.782%, the highest level since January this year; the 30-year US Treasury yield also rose more than 2 basis points to 5.273%; and the yield on 2-year US Treasury bonds, which is sensitive to monetary policy, is 4.35%. According to money market data, the market currently believes that the probability that the Federal Reserve will raise the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points on September 16 is close to 70%.
The Ministry of Finance buys and rescues the market “worth nothing”! In September, a wave of 215-billion corporate bonds surged, and it is feared that the benefits of US bond repurchases will be completely erased. Although Treasury Secretary Bessent shocked the market last month by announcing an expansion of repurchases of old bonds to curb rising yields, many investors still don't expect a continuous reversal in yield. Following the record issuance volume in August, corporate bonds are expected to be issued at US$215 billion in September, which will offset the impact of purchases by the Ministry of Finance. At the same time, few people expect the US fiscal deficit concerns, which have been suppressing government bonds, to subside in the short term. Meanwhile, the September US Federal Reserve meeting will test Chairman Kevin Walsh's determination to raise interest rates in the face of stubborn inflation; if the Federal Reserve hesitates on this matter, the sell-off of long-term US bonds is expected to intensify further. Since longer-term bonds are more likely to be affected by inflation concerns, even as consumer prices rise at an accelerated pace, signs that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged will provide investors with more reasons to stay away from struggling 30-year treasury bonds.
Walsh put interest rate hikes on the table, but the market may have placed bets too fast. Walsh's remarks at the Jackson Hole annual meeting quickly changed the market's judgment on the US interest rate path. Prior to Walsh's speech, the market originally thought the Fed would have to wait at least December to raise interest rates; however, after the speech ended, the probability of a rate hike at the September meeting quickly heated up. However, the market's bets on interest rate hikes may have gone too fast. Before the Federal Reserve actually makes a decision, it will also obtain a batch of key economic data, and the current inflation and employment performance have not formed a clear consensus that interest rate hikes are urgently needed. The job market will be one of the most important observation windows. The US non-farm payrolls data has been weak for three consecutive months. If the employment data released this week continues to weaken, it will further weaken the reason for the Federal Reserve to tighten its policy immediately. Inflation data is also critical. In July, the US PCE price index rose 3.7% year on year, and the core PCE rose 3.3%; however, excluding extreme price fluctuations, the Dallas Fed index was only 2.3%, which is already clearly close to the 2% policy target. Before the September meeting, the Federal Reserve will also obtain a series of data such as CPI, PPI, and employment. As long as there are clear signs of cooling, the current rate hike pricing is likely to fall back quickly.
Castle Securities sounded the alarm: In September, the “curse” superimposed cheap options, and short-term risk-return on US stocks deteriorated dramatically. September is usually the worst performing month of the year for US stocks, and the average monthly return for the S&P 500 index is at its lowest level throughout the year. The option price is now at the lowest level of the year — when the two are combined, the risk-reward ratio of buying fall protection is quite attractive. This is the central point of Scott Rubner, head of stock and stock derivatives strategy at Castle Securities, in a report. Rubner pointed out that the bullish pattern that drove the S&P 500 index to a record high in August is changing. He cited earnings calendars, share buyback prospects, seasonal factors, and retail trading patterns as reasons to be cautious. “Taken together, they changed short-term asymmetry. The upward catalysts are becoming less obvious, while the catalysts for the downside are increasing.”
Walsh hawkish statements stir up the market! Komo gave up on bullish US stocks for the time being and switched to watching carefully for the next few weeks. After Federal Reserve Chairman Walsh delivered a hawkish speech last week, the market clearly raised its bets on further interest rate hikes this year. As a result, uncertainty about interest rate prospects has become one of the main pressures facing US stocks in the short term. As a result, the J.P. Morgan Chase trading team temporarily abandoned its previous bullish stance on US stocks and instead took a cautious approach to market trends over the next few weeks. However, J.P. Morgan stressed that this does not mean that it has turned bearish on US stocks. The bank believes that US economic data and corporate profits are still supported, and the fundamentals of the stock market are still strong. However, before the Federal Reserve announces the next interest rate decision on September 16, many short-term uncertainties may cause US stocks to enter a volatile phase.
Individual stock news
US technology stocks generally fell before the market. Before the US stock market on Tuesday, as of press release, SanDisk (SNDK.US) fell more than 3%, Micron (MU.US), SK Hynix (SKHY.US), Seagate (STX.US), Western Digital (WDC.US), and Intel (INTC.US) all fell more than 2%. AMD (AMD.US), Oracle (ORCL.US) fell nearly 2%, Qualcomm (QCOM.US), Amazon (AMZN.US), SpaceX (SPCX.US), Broadcom (AVGO.US), Nvidia ( NVDA.US), Microsoft (MSFT.US), and Meta (META.US) fell more than 1%. Optical communications stocks also generally fell, with Mwell Technology (MRVL.US) falling nearly 3%, Astera Labs (ALAB.US) and Corning (GLW.US) falling more than 2%, and Coherent (COHR.US), Lumentum (LITE.US), Credo Technology (CRDO.US), and Nokia (NOK.US) falling nearly 2%.
Tesla (TSLA.US) European car market “two days of ice and fire”: French registrations soared 279% in August, but Norway plummeted 79%. Tesla's vehicle registration data performance in various European markets in August was mixed: France and Denmark registered sharp year-on-year increases, while Norway and Sweden recorded significant declines. According to data from local automotive industry organizations, Tesla's new car registrations (generally regarded as a leading indicator of sales) surged 279% year over year in France and 104% in Denmark. Meanwhile, Norwegian registrations fell 79% year over year, and Sweden fell 41% year over year. After two consecutive years of declining annual sales, Tesla's sales in the European market picked up this year, mainly due to the low base for the same period last year, rising fuel prices, government car purchase incentives, and continued growth in demand for electric vehicles. Registration data for Europe's two major car markets — the UK and Germany — will be released later this week.
Alleged bid rigging! Amazon (AMZN.US) was jointly sued by the FTC and 22 states, or faced sky-high civil fines. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and multiple US states have jointly sued Amazon, accusing the e-commerce giant of systematically overcharging advertisers by more than 20 billion US dollars since 2019. According to the indictment, Amazon ultimately misled 1.2 million advertisers, including more than 500,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, in terms of the pricing and terms of the company's so-called “sponsored listings” (that is, users see the top products when searching in its online marketplace). The FTC, which is responsible for enforcing antitrust laws and consumer protection laws, and 22 state attorneys general claim that Amazon carried out these suspected irregularities by manipulating the auction process used to set advertising prices on its platform. The lawsuit could result in billions of dollars in civil fines.
Broadcom (AVGO.US) VMware Explore Conference showcased the latest layout of private AI cloud and intelligent governance to accelerate the implementation of enterprise-level AI. At the VMware Explore 2026 conference in Las Vegas, Broadcom highlighted its latest layout in the fields of AI agent governance, open source security, and data sovereignty. The semiconductor giant officially released the VMware private AI cloud, providing a path for enterprises to directly enter production, enabling them to securely build, operate, and manage inference workloads, intelligent applications, and traditional enterprise workloads on a unified private cloud platform. This means businesses can now run AI production tasks in a local environment. At the same time, Broadcom also launched the VMware AI factory as a software-defined base for VMware's private AI cloud. Broadcom has also released a number of new solutions for AI agent behavior control and governance, including AgentMinder, VMware vDefend, and VMware Avi load balancers.
Novartis Pharmaceuticals (NVS.US) neuroimmunization pipeline “mixed with joy and sorrow”: CAR-T clinical trials were suspended due to patient death, and post-trial MS oral medication was successful. Novartis suspended eight clinical trials of experimental treatments for autoimmune and neurological diseases at the end of August after three patients died. This experimental treatment is known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell immunotherapy (CAR-T). However, Novartis Pharmaceuticals is showing advantages on the other front. The experimental oral drug for multiple sclerosis developed by the company was successful in two late-stage clinical trials and is expected to become a novel oral treatment for this central nervous system autoimmune disease. The company said the trial showed that patients treated with remibrutinib (remibrutinib) had a reduction in the recurrence rate and number of brain lesions compared to those treated with teriflunomide (teriflunomide), and no signs of liver safety were observed.
Key economic data and event forecasts
Beijing time 22:00 US ISM manufacturing PMI for August
22:00 Beijing time US July JoLTs job vacancies (10,000)
Performance Forecast
Wednesday morning: Dell Technologies (DELL.US), Palo Alto Networks (PANW.US), Credo Technology (CRDO.US), MongoDB (MDB.US), Gitlab (GTLB.US)
Wednesday pre-market: Yixian E-commerce (YSG.US)