Pre-market market trends
1. On September 14 (Monday), the futures of the three major US stock indexes fell sharply before the US stock market. As of press release, Dow futures were down 0.20%, S&P 500 futures were down 0.55%, and NASDAQ futures were down 1.39%.
2. As of press release, the German DAX index fell 0.33%, the UK FTSE 100 index rose 0.66%, the French CAC40 index fell 0.65%, and the European Stoxx 50 index fell 0.95%.
3. As of press release, WTI crude oil rose 3.03% to $103.08 per barrel. Brent crude rose 3.40% to $108.17 per barrel.
Market news
The Federal Reserve's interest rate hike is imminent, oil prices are breaking 100, and AI beliefs are shaking — US stocks are facing the most dangerous week of the year. In the coming week, US stocks will be under intense scrutiny. The first to bear the brunt is undoubtedly the latest interest rate decision to be announced by the Federal Reserve on September 16. After data showed that inflation picked up in August, the market is highly betting that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by 25 basis points at that time. Some investors believe that this resolution will test Federal Reserve Chairman Walsh's anti-inflation credibility. Meanwhile, the three AI giants Anthropic, OpenAI, and XAI all shouted for “deceleration” over the weekend, calling for the entire industry to slow down the development of cutting-edge models. This will undoubtedly put short-term pressure on AI trading in US stocks. Furthermore, the situation in the Middle East continues to escalate. Yemen's Houthis captured Perim Island in the Mander Strait, another oil tanker was attacked and caught fire in Hormuz on Sunday, and Oman temporarily postponed the Iran-Gulf meeting, and supply risks are accumulating on multiple lines. As far as inflation is concerned, this is adding fuel to the fire. High oil prices are likely to further reinforce the Federal Reserve's hawkish rhetoric.
The Big Three shouted for “AI deceleration,” and AI trading in US stocks was tested under stress. Last weekend, the AI industry staged a rare scene. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a long article entitled “We must control the frontier”, calling on the entire industry to slow down the development of cutting-edge models. Afterwards, OpenAI CEO Sam Ultrman and XAI's Musk publicly responded. Musk said “Dario is right,” while Ultraman wrote on X: “I agree with Dario. We need to control the pace of advancement of cutting-edge AI.” Ultraman also revealed to the media that OpenAI will not go public this year due to security concerns. Some market participants questioned whether the “deceleration” was due to safety, or whether huge capital expenses “can't burn money” — if the latter is true, investors will have to re-examine AI pricing logic. However, analysts generally don't think the long-term logic has been broken. Gary Tan, portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments, said, “This may cause some short-term pressure, but it is unlikely to disrupt long-term AI transactions. AI is still in its early stages, and I'm not sure if other players in the ecosystem are willing to slow down as technology evolves rapidly.”
With inflation rebounding and oil prices breaking 100, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase switched to expecting the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this week. Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan currently anticipate that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates this week. The previous series of higher-than-expected inflation data challenged the market's hopes that “price pressure will continue to ease without further policy tightening.” In a report released last Friday, Goldman Sachs abandoned its previous forecast for the Federal Reserve to “keep interest rates unchanged”. Currently, it is expected that the Fed will raise interest rates by 25 basis points at the September 15-16 meeting. Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan predicts that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by 25 basis points each in September and December. According to data released last week, the increase in US consumer prices and producer prices in August both exceeded expectations, while oil prices climbed to more than $100 per barrel due to further escalation of tension in the Middle East. Since then, these two Wall Street banks have joined a growing number of forecasters that have turned their positions more hawkish.
AI bubble, diesel shock, and soaring yield! Bank of America Hartnett warns that the risk of fall stagflation is approaching. Triple pressure is converging on the market. Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at Bank of America, warned that record diesel prices, 30-year US Treasury yields have soared to high levels since 2007, and hidden productivity concerns under the cover of the AI boom are creating a risk of fall stagnation. Hartnett listed the Transportation ETF (IYT) as the most critical observation indicator at present. He pointed out that if IYT falls below the 80-point support level of the 200-day EMA, macro-de-risking that confirms that the “best time has passed” in summer will officially evolve into a fall stagflation event. At the same time, he warned that “a calm market combined with tough policies is a breeding ground for volatility,” and clearly stated that “it is not too late to hedge against AI bubble stock indexes.”
If you bypass Hormuz, you can't get around the flames of war! Saudi oil's “circuitry” was hit hard, and Brent crude hit 110 US dollars. Recent geopolitical game dynamics show that the shutdown of Saudi Arabia's east-west oil pipeline, the advance of the Houthis along the Red Sea, and the postponement of temporary shipping talks in Hormuz have all weakened market expectations for the recovery of Middle Eastern oil exports. After the opening of the Asian session on Monday, the international crude oil price benchmark, Brent crude oil directly surged 3.6% higher, breaking through $108 per barrel; WTI crude oil futures for October rose 2.8% to 102.87 US dollars/barrel, and soon thereafter broke through 103 US dollars/barrel. As shipping continues to be blocked in the Strait of Hormuz, the tightening situation in the Red Sea will undoubtedly have a new impact on the global energy market. Ben Cahill, a senior researcher at the US Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, pointed out that the Red Sea waterway has always been critical. In the past six months, one of the major guarantees of energy security is that risk zones can be circumvented through Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline and another high-capacity alternative pipeline from the UAE. If the east-west oil pipeline is closed for a long time, it will present a huge challenge, because this pipeline is currently the most important pipeline to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Individual stock news
Chip stocks and optical communication stocks generally declined before the market. Before the US stock market on Monday, SK Hynix (SKHY.US) fell more than 7%, Intel (INTC.US) and SNDK.US (SNDK.US) fell nearly 6%, Micron (MU.US), Western Digital (WDC.US), Seagate (STX.US), AMD (AMD.US) fell more than 5%, Qualcomm (QCOM.US) fell nearly 4%, and Broadcom (AVGO.US) and Nvidia (NVDA.US) fell nearly 3%. In terms of optical communications stocks, Nokia (NOK.US) fell nearly 9%, Corning (GLW.US) fell more than 8%, MRVL.US (MRVL.US) fell more than 7%, Lumentum (LITE.US) and Coherent (COHR.US) fell nearly 7%, Credo Technology (CRDO.US) fell more than 6%, and Astera Labs (ALAB.US) fell more than 5%.
Gulman predicts that the iPhone Duo: the first to fold or become an industry standard, the Apple (AAPL.US) folding machine may explode a ten-year switching cycle. Well-known financial journalist Mark Gurman said that Apple's first folding iPhone has the potential to push the folding phone category, which is still experimental, to the industry standard. He said that the device, called the iPhone Duo, is one of Apple's most influential products, second only to iMac, iPod, iPad, and Apple Watch. Although folding screen phones have been around for many years, Gulman believes that Apple's ability to integrate software, materials, and durability gives them a better chance of winning recognition from mainstream consumers. Gurman also predicted that folding phones will account for the majority of new phone sales within ten years. The iPhone Duo is expected to become the leading folding model early next year, and demand may cause serious shortages and high second-hand prices.
Tesla (TSLA.US) Roadster has been warming up for 9 years, and the market won't buy it! Tesla posted on X last Sunday morning that it was “ready to be released,” and attached a picture of a sports car with four propeller-shaped tail flames and the “October 1” date, reigniting market speculation about the upcoming launch of its next Roadster. The words “WHERE WE'RE GOING” also appear vaguely in the picture, which seems to pay tribute to the movie “Back to the Future” and CEO Elon Musk's long-standing claim that the Roadster can levitate. However, on the financial social networking platform Stocktwits, retail sentiments about Tesla have changed from being “bullish” a week ago to “bearish,” and retail investors are questioning whether this expensive sports car that has repeatedly jumped tickets can actually boost revenue. As of press release, Tesla's US stocks fell nearly 2% before the market on Monday.
The phase III clinical trial of the AstraZeneca (AZN.US) breast cancer drug Etcamah was thwarted, or caused sales of billions of dollars to be overshadowed. AstraZeneca announced on Friday that its SERENA-4 phase III trial for first-line treatment of ER-positive and HER2-negative advanced breast cancer with oral selective estrogen receptor (SERD) Etcamah (camizestrant) combined with pabosinib did not reach the main end. Although there was a numerical improvement in the patients' progression-free survival (PFS), it was not statistically significant. In response, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst John Murphy said that the failure of AstraZeneca's breast cancer drug trial may reduce sales by 2.6 billion to 3.8 billion US dollars in 2035. RBC Capital Markets analyst Trung Huynh previously estimated that the breast cancer drug's potential revenue was about 1 billion US dollars.
The survival time has almost doubled! BioNTech's (BNTX.US) lung cancer candidate PRESERVE-003 late-stage trial was successful, and oncology transformation received critical support again. BioNTech said on Monday that a late-stage clinical trial showed that in a specific type of lung cancer, its drug candidate, brought clinically significant overall survival benefits over standard treatments. According to the company, the trial is a PRESERVE-003 phase III clinical trial, which included patients with squamous non-small cell lung cancer whose disease progressed even after receiving previous immunotherapy and chemotherapy; compared with standard chemotherapy, GOTISTOBART almost doubled the survival time. As of press release, BioNTech's US stock rose more than 3% before the market on Monday.