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# Research run 2026-08-26T02:53 UTC

## What changed

- AU July CPI hot: 3.5% vs 3.2-3.3% consensus, trimmed mean 3.6%; September RBA hike odds ~27% from 17%, ASX 200 flat at 9,160.
- Bloomberg: Meta and state AGs have discussed a mid-trial settlement of the teen-harm case; META $567.75 after hours, take stays hold.
- Nvidia ~6:30am AEST Thursday: consensus $92.2B revenue, Q3 bar ~$104B; S&P futures -0.2%, Nasdaq -0.4% ahead of PCE 22:30 AEST.
- Asia mixed into Nvidia: Kospi +1.6% (SK hynix +1.2%), Hang Seng +1%, Alibaba HK$116 (+1.7%) as its HK$80B placement settles.
- WTI $80.48 (-2.3%) on Iran-Oman Hormuz corridor talks; ASX energy -2.5%, 10-year 4.64%, AUD 0.718.
- OpenAI: Goldman Sachs AM arranging $6.6B of GPU-backed debt with an Nvidia backstop (9fin); Anthropic sought up to 5GW in NSW (ABC).

## Market summary

Australia's July CPI ran hot: headline 3.5% y/y (consensus 3.2-3.3%, June 3.8%) and trimmed mean steady at 3.6%; September RBA hike pricing rose to ~27% from 17%, AUD/USD 0.718, and the ASX 200 faded to flat at 9,160 with energy -2.5%. Asia is mixed into Nvidia: Kospi +1.6% (Samsung +1.0%, SK hynix +1.2%), Taiex +0.6%, Hang Seng +1.0% with Alibaba HK$116.10 (+1.7%) as its HK$80B placement settles, Nikkei flat. S&P futures -0.2%, Nasdaq futures -0.4%, 10-year 4.64%, WTI $80.48 (-2.3%) on Iran-Oman talks over a temporary Hormuz corridor, bitcoin ~$78,900. Bloomberg reports Meta and the state AGs have discussed a mid-trial settlement of the teen-harm case. Tonight 22:30 AEST: July PCE (core 3.3% y/y consensus) and the Q2 GDP revision; then Nvidia ~6:30am AEST Thursday (consensus $92.2B revenue, ~$2.08 EPS, Q3 bar ~$104B, guide assumes no China data-centre revenue), Marvell ~6:30am AEST Friday and Warsh at Jackson Hole 12am AEST Saturday.

## Holdings

- AMZN: hold @ $261.06 - Closed down 0.4% at $261.06 and $260.89 after hours; nothing new overnight (the only AWS item circulating is an April recap of the Bahrain drone strike, not a fresh event). PYMNTS puts Amazon at 17.8% of US clothing spend versus Walmart's 6.0%, but AWS is what matters. With $220B capex, Bezos selling and state antitrust suits capping the multiple, hold.
- AXOS: hold @ $98.82 - Closed up 1.9% at $98.82, flat after hours, and quiet overnight after Tuesday's NYSE Texas dual-listing. Benchmark's $120 target (Aug 17) and 17% ROE support holding.
- BABA: watch @ $119.44 - ADR closed up 0.8% at $119.44. Hong Kong 9988 is trading HK$116.00, up 1.6%, at 10:26 HKT as the HK$80B placement settles today, with the Hang Seng up 1% and an intraday high of HK$117.80; that is 2.9% above the HK$112.70 placing price after Jack Ma (>HK$600M) and Joe Tsai (another 720,000 shares, HK$81.7M) bought Tuesday. The placement is absorbing for now, but one session is not a base; keep watching for a hold above HK$117-118 before adding.
- ENPH: watch @ $37.35 - Closed up 0.5% at $37.35 and $37.26 after hours, nothing new overnight. Q3 revenue guide of $290-320M is below last year and the Dutch net-metering push, AI assistant and IQ Battery C80 are incremental, so stay on the sidelines until residential demand stabilises.
- FIGR: hold @ $41.14 - Closed up 6.5% at $41.14 ($40.94 after hours), no follow-on news after the EDX Markets YLDS collateral integration. Q2 revenue +121% to $198.8M and marketplace volume +132% to $4.3B underpin Bernstein's $70 target; hold and let execution play out.
- GOOGL: add @ $346.96 - Closed down 0.3% at $346.96 and $347.20 after hours. New overnight: Google Cloud launched Gemini Enterprise for Legal in preview with Cleary, Freshfields, Weil and Williams & Connolly as customers and Harvey, iManage, NetDocuments and Relativity as connectors, alongside Tuesday's Financial Services vertical. Drivers unchanged: Cloud +82%, Morgan Stanley's ~$200B TPU cloud case, and the stock ~3% under its 50-day near $358, so the dip remains an entry.
- LDI: trim @ $0.92 - Closed up 3.7% at $0.92 ($0.94 after hours), still under the $1 NYSE threshold with a six-month cure window from the Aug 21 notice; nothing new overnight. Goldman is at Sell with a $1 target; compliance and reverse-split or dilution risk argue for reducing exposure.
- META: hold @ $570.05 - Closed up 2% at $570.05, then $567.75 after hours. New overnight: Bloomberg reports Meta and the state attorneys general have discussed a mid-trial settlement in the second week of the Oakland teen-harm trial; Meta's own worst-case estimate is $1.4T of exposure, Bloomberg says any deal would be substantially smaller, and Meta has not commented. Earlier Tuesday Mosseri conceded few teens knew about 'Take a Break' and that Instagram struggled for years to get them to use it, while denying any suppression of risks. A settlement would lift the biggest overhang on a stock ~26% down YTD with $125-145B capex; hold until terms surface.
- MRVL: hold @ $240.38 - Closed up 4.8% at $240.38 ($241.52 after hours) on Rosenblatt $300, Susquehanna $265, HSBC $325 and Wells Fargo $310 target moves tied to the Google warrant deal; nothing new overnight. Thursday's print (Fri ~6:30am AEST) faces ~$2.71B revenue and $0.93 EPS consensus, but the bar is Q3 guidance versus the $3.03B street number; with the stock up ~160% YTD and options implying a ~12% move, hold through the report.
- MU: hold @ $932.97 - Closed up 2.5% at $932.97 ($935.00 after hours). New overnight: CEO Sanjay Mehrotra sold 39,994 shares for $38.7M at $959-990 on Aug 21 under a January 10b5-1 plan, keeping 264,503 shares directly and 607,075 via GRATs, a routine sale not a signal. Korea read-through is mildly positive: SK hynix +1.2% and Samsung +1.0% at 11:18 KST with the Kospi up ~0.9% early. Gartner's $837B 2026 memory revenue call and the HBM sold-out story hold; Nvidia's print tonight is the swing factor, so hold.
- NFLX: add @ $82.23 - Closed up 2.8% at $82.23 ($82.16 after hours) on Wolfe's $95 target (22x 2028 EPS of $4.41); overnight adds only a GTA VI extended-look premiere and the Shonda Rhimes five-year renewal. Still ~36% below the 52-week high with ad-tier, NFL and Peacock/Fox One hosting optionality, so the valuation reset remains an add.
- NVDA: hold @ $213.05 - Closed up 2.2% at $213.05 ($214.17 after hours) into the print (Thu ~6:30am AEST); S&P futures 7,677 (-0.2%) and Nasdaq futures -0.4% overnight, Nikkei -0.4%. Fresh notes are all bullish: BMO reiterated Buy with $340, Raymond James $352, BofA calls the valuation compelling. Consensus $92.2B revenue and ~$2.09 EPS, Q3 guide bar ~$104.2B at ~75% gross margin, Rubin ~$9B of Q3 per Morgan Stanley, and questions on the $500B customer financing and $105B OpenAI lease guarantee; options imply 5-6%. Hold and reassess after guidance.
- OPENAI: hold - New overnight: 9fin reports Goldman Sachs Asset Management is arranging a $6.6B privately placed, GPU-backed debt package for OpenAI with an Nvidia backstop, debt rather than equity, so no mark change. Open questions remain the senior departures ahead of a 2027 IPO, ~$750B of planned compute spend and whether Jalapeno's per-watt claims translate to 2027 volume; Nvidia's call tonight may add colour on the $105B Ohio guarantee. Private, so hold. Marked at 5.43x cost: latest valuation ~$852B (2026-08) vs ~$157B at entry (https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/10/openai-reportedly-completed-a-7-billion-employee-tender-offer/).
- RKT: hold @ $14.3 - Closed up 1.5% at $14.30, unchanged after hours and quiet overnight; the 10-year at 4.63% helps refi at the margin, but after the ~50% run and Q2's 9.6% post-earnings drop the shares look fully priced, so hold.
- STRIPE: hold - No new valuation event overnight; the OpenRouter acquisition (~$7B), Treasury in Australia and the Singapore payment-method expansion are steady growth, not a mark change, so hold the private position. Marked at 2.27x cost: latest valuation ~$159B (2026-02) vs ~$70B at entry (https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/24/stripes-valuation-soars-74-to-159-billion/).
- TSM: add @ $417.41 - Closed up 1.8% at $417.41 ($417.76 after hours). Taipei is quiet ahead of Nvidia: 2330 at NT$2,405, +0.2%, at 10:29 local after dipping 0.4% at the open; no new company news. With 40%+ 2026 growth guidance, Apple's 2nm M6 and up-to-10% 2027 price rises, the pullback from the June NT$2,535 high remains a buying opportunity.

## Watchlist

- ALAB:US Astera Labs - accumulate (medium) - Astera Labs sells the connectivity silicon (PCIe/CXL retimers, Scorpio fabric switches, Ethernet) that ties GPUs and XPUs together inside AI racks; Q2 2026 revenue was $392M (+104% YoY, +27% QoQ) with eight straight EPS beats, and Scorpio switches become the largest product line in Q3, a quarter early. Shares closed +1.8% at $282.65 on Aug 25 (after-hours $283.98) and remain ~44% below their 52-week high, offering exposure to scale-up networking, the fastest-growing layer of AI infrastructure.
- AVGO:US Broadcom - accumulate (medium) - Broadcom is the leading custom AI accelerator (XPU) and AI networking supplier to hyperscalers, guiding Q3 FY26 AI semiconductor revenue to ~$16B (>200% YoY) and total revenue to $29.4B (+84%), with a stated path to >$100B of AI revenue in 2027. The stock is ~23% below its June high after the July semiconductor selloff, giving a better entry into a franchise with multi-year committed custom-silicon programs plus a sticky VMware software annuity. On Aug 25 OpenAI published the first results for Jalapeno, the inference ASIC it co-designed with Broadcom, claiming up to 1.9x throughput per kilowatt and 3.6x lower latency than Nvidia's GB300 at 700W versus 1,400W, a public validation of the custom-XPU franchise a week before Broadcom reports.
- CRDO:US Credo Technology - accumulate (medium) - Credo makes the active electrical cables (AECs), optical DSPs and retimers that link GPUs and switches inside AI clusters, and its ZeroFlap AECs have become the default in-rack copper link for hyperscalers. Fiscal 2026 (ended May 2) revenue tripled to $1.335B, with Q4 revenue of $437M (+157% YoY) at a 68% gross margin and GAAP net income of $169M; Q1 FY27 guidance of $465-475M implies roughly a doubling YoY, and the print lands on Sep 1 after the close, a day before Broadcom. Four hyperscalers each exceed 10% of revenue (top three 34%, 27% and 16% last reported), so the base has broadened from one anchor customer. Shares closed +1.8% at $226.51 on Aug 25 (after-hours $226.06), 27% below the $308.67 52-week high, with consensus targets near $283; it pairs with Astera Labs as a second pure play on scale-up connectivity, the fastest-growing layer of AI capex.
- SKHY:US SK hynix - accumulate (medium) - SK hynix supplies more than half of the world's HBM and just posted record Q2 2026 results: revenue KRW 79.3T (+257% YoY) and operating income KRW 60.5T (+557% YoY) at a 76% operating margin, with HBM4 mass shipments ramping in H2. On Aug 19 it accelerated a KRW 40T buyback-and-cancel program (24.07M shares, 3.3% of the count, executed over ~3 months from Aug 20) and lifted its shareholder-return target to over 50% of FCF, backed by ~KRW 69T of net cash; it is also weighing a first Japanese memory fab (Miyagi), and the July 2026 Nasdaq ADR broadens the investor base. On Aug 25 the Seoul shares reversed a 4.5% morning drop to close +0.4% at KRW 1,678,000 as the buyback and domestic buying absorbed foreign selling and the Kospi swung from -4% to +0.7%; Needham lifted its ADR target to $220 from $200, and the ADR closed +2.7% at $159.53 on Aug 25 (after-hours $159.27), recovering more than half of Monday's 4.9% drop. On Aug 26 the Seoul shares opened lower and then rose 1.2% to KRW 1,698,000 by 11:20 KST (day range 1,662,000-1,717,000) with the Kospi +0.9% and Samsung Electronics +2.1% as chipmakers were bought ahead of the Nvidia print; the stock is still ~9% below its 200-day average (~KRW 1,874,000).
- 3750:HK CATL - buy (high) - CATL is the world's largest battery maker (~40% global EV battery share) and the clear leader in grid storage: H1 2026 revenue rose 55% to RMB 277B and net profit 42% to RMB 43.3B, with energy storage revenue up 88% to RMB 53B (nearly 20% of sales) as global storage deployments surge. It raised ~$5B in Hong Kong in April, announced a large buyback in July, Moody's moved its A3 outlook to positive in August, and on Aug 25 it agreed to pay RMB 2.56B (~$370M) for a 24.9% stake in Qiyuan Green Power, China's largest heavy-truck battery-swapping operator (1,600+ stations in 208 cities), making CATL the largest shareholder and the dominant player in commercial-vehicle swapping. The stock closed -2.7% at HK$621.00 on Aug 25 (Seres-backed Aiva is reportedly exploring joining CATL's swap network) and was trading +1.5% at HK$630.50 at 10:25 HKT on Aug 26 (day range HK$616.50-632.00) with the Hang Seng +1.0%, on no new company news; it is ~21% below its 52-week high, with scale, cost and chemistry (sodium-ion, LFP) advantages competitors cannot match.
- BE:US Bloom Energy - accumulate (medium) - Bloom's solid-oxide fuel cells have become a mainstream on-site power solution for AI data centers that cannot wait years for grid interconnects: Q2 2026 revenue jumped 166% to $1.07B with a 33% gross margin, and full-year guidance was raised to $3.9-4.2B revenue and $800-900M non-GAAP operating income. A 2.8 GW Oracle agreement and the Nebius Vineland win show the customer base broadening to hyperscalers and neoclouds, and the new Power Connect deployment system cuts installation time by over 40%. The Pelosi pop held all session: shares closed +6.6% at $217.45 on Aug 25 (after-hours $218.00) after +1.3% to $204.02 on Aug 24, as retail follows Nancy Pelosi's first-ever Bloom purchase (about $3-4.25M of stock and options, reported alongside Intel) and AI-infrastructure names (Bloom, Supermicro) rebound ahead of Nvidia; Goldman/sell-side EPS estimates are being hiked, and the stock remains ~36% off its June high.
- ENR:DE Siemens Energy - accumulate (medium) - Siemens Energy is Europe's answer to GE Vernova: gas turbines, grid technologies (transformers, HVDC, switchgear) and wind. Fiscal Q3 2026 (June quarter) orders hit a record EUR 17.9B (book-to-bill 1.57), revenue grew 18.5% comparable to EUR 11.4B, profit before special items more than tripled to EUR 1.62B, pre-tax free cash flow rose to EUR 2.3B and the order backlog reached EUR 162B, with the Grid Technologies backlog alone at a record EUR 51B on transformer demand from US data centers; FY26 guidance was confirmed toward the upper end of the 10-12% margin range and Siemens Gamesa posted its first positive quarter in 15. The break-up question was answered on Aug 25: in an ad-hoc release at 20:25 CEST (18:25 UTC, after the Xetra close) the boards said Siemens Energy is starting preparations for the legal and operational separation of the Transformation of Industry business area (steam turbines, generators, compressors and industrial services: ~17,000 employees, FY25 revenue EUR 5.7B at an 11.3% margin, ~50% service, 85,000-unit installed base) into a standalone industrial-energy-solutions company. The objective is to deconsolidate the unit while retaining a meaningful minority stake, with options ranging from external investors (Goldman Sachs is running the process; CVC, EQT, Bain, Brookfield and KKR were reported as interested, and Bloomberg pegged the valuation above EUR 10B) to a capital-markets transaction. CEO Christian Bruch: 'If we don't change our structure, we limit what Transformation of Industry can achieve. Our current investment focus is on power generation and power transmission.' Shares closed +2.7% at EUR 152.76 on Aug 25 (day range EUR 150.48-154.88) before the release; the only post-release trading so far, on Tradegate up to 22:00 CEST, left the stock at EUR 153.50 (bid 152.90/ask 153.50), about 0.5% above the Xetra close, so there was no knee-jerk selling and the Xetra open at 17:00 AEST Wednesday is the first real test; consensus target is ~EUR 197 and the stock is ~20% below the EUR 191.66 52-week high. A deconsolidation at EUR 10B+ would crystallise value for a ~EUR 5.7B-revenue unit, fund grid and gas-turbine capacity, and leave a cleaner AI-power pure play in gas, grid and wind.
- GEV:US GE Vernova - accumulate (high) - GE Vernova is the key bottleneck supplier of gas turbines and grid equipment for the AI power buildout: Q2 2026 orders rose 88% organically to $24.2B, total backlog is ~$176B, the gas turbine backlog reached 116 GW (targeting 125 GW under contract by year-end), and H1 free cash flow of $5.1B already exceeded all of 2025. Capacity is being scaled from 20 GW/yr today to 24 GW in 2028 and 30 GW in 2030 with pricing power rising; the stock closed -1.6% at $926.73 on Aug 25 on no company news (the 295 MW Azulao I gas plant in Brazil entered commercial operation and a new medium-voltage UPS for AI data centers was launched; on Aug 26 at CIGRE Paris it added the F35g 170 kV SF6-free gas-insulated switchgear, completing an SF6-free GIS range from 72.5 to 420 kV that is available for order and built in Europe) and is ~23% below its 52-week high after a Q2 EPS miss.
- HOOD:US Robinhood Markets - accumulate (medium) - Robinhood posted record Q2 2026 revenue of $1.31B (+32% YoY) with a 57% adjusted EBITDA margin and $573M net income, while Gold subscribers hit 4.8M and margin, credit card and banking balances all set records. It is compounding into a full-stack retail financial platform (brokerage, crypto, banking, prediction markets, tokenization via Rothera/WonderFi), and the Clarity Act plus the crypto rally are near-term tailwinds; shares are ~28% off their 52-week high. After a 13% surge last week on Trump's Clarity Act endorsement and a bitcoin breakout, the stock gave back 4.2% to $103.62 on Aug 24 and then closed +8.2% at $112.09 on Aug 25, the best mover on the list. There is no single company catalyst: bitcoin briefly topped $80K before settling ~$78.8K, Webull's CEO said crypto buy orders are up ~300% since FINRA scrapped the $25K pattern-day-trader rule in June (a tailwind Robinhood shares), Goldman reiterated Buy on Coinbase and Robinhood, the Nasdaq is rebounding into Nvidia, and Robinhood Chain DEX Arcus launched pTokens that turn perp positions into transferable ERC-20 tokens (The Block, Crypto Briefing), a reminder of the tokenization optionality; Goldman ($123) and Bernstein ($160) targets frame the upside. Bernstein's Aug 25 note put prediction-market trading volume at ~$240B for 2026, rising to ~$1T and ~$10.8B of industry revenue by 2030, a segment Robinhood has been expanding in; shares eased 0.4% to $111.62 after hours.
- MELI:US MercadoLibre - accumulate (medium) - MercadoLibre is Latin America's dominant e-commerce, logistics and fintech platform. Q2 2026 revenue grew 49.8% to $10.17B, its fastest growth in four years and 30th straight quarter above 30%, unique active buyers rose to 89M (+18M YoY), the Mercado Pago credit book grew 75% to $16.4B with a deliberate shift to lower-risk borrowers, and adjusted EPS of $9.19 beat consensus. The stock fell to ~$1,813 after the print on margin compression and has recovered to $1,997 (+2.5% on Aug 25), still ~22% below its 52-week high, giving an entry into a non-US Internet compounder with a logistics-plus-payments moat comparable to Sea's.
- NET:US Cloudflare - buy (high) - Cloudflare's growth is re-accelerating on AI: Q2 2026 revenue rose 36% to $696M, dollar-based net retention improved 6 points to 120%, large customers grew 27% to 4,698, and full-year guidance was lifted to $2.86-2.87B. Its global edge network is the natural control point for agentic and bot traffic (non-human traffic now >50%), and Workers/AI inference give it a second growth engine beyond security and CDN. Shares fell 4.4% to $280.35 on Aug 24 in a software/cloud selloff (Datadog -3%, Nebius -4% as its $5B convertible settled) with no company-specific news and slipped a further 1.0% to $277.58 on Aug 25 as software lagged the semis bounce; Cloudflare launched an AEO Visibility Dashboard that shows brands whether AI assistants recommend them, another agentic-web hook. We read the pullback as a better entry rather than a change in the story; consensus target is ~$334.
- SE:US Sea Limited - buy (high) - Sea grew Q2 2026 revenue 48% to $7.8B with all three engines firing: Shopee GMV +28% to $38.3B (ad revenue +70%, eight straight quarters of sequential growth), Monee fintech revenue +59% with an $11.1B loan book (+62%) at 1.0% NPLs, and Garena gaming still growing. The stock closed +6.5% at $123.18 on Aug 25 with no company-specific news (an EM/Internet bid alongside MercadoLibre +2.5% and post-Q2 target hikes from BofA, Barclays, Morgan Stanley and Benchmark) and is still ~36% below its 52-week high while consensus targets sit near $155, an unusual growth-at-a-discount setup for a Southeast Asian platform with a widening logistics and payments moat.
- 6861:JP Keyence Corp - buy (high) - Keyence is the picks-and-shovels supplier of machine vision, sensors and measurement systems for factory automation and the emerging humanoid/robotics supply chain; fiscal Q1 (June 2026 quarter) sales rose 33% to JPY 347B and net income 51% to JPY 139B, with overseas sales +39% (Asia +50%, Americas +31%). Operating margins above 50%, a 95% equity ratio and a direct-sales model with no factories give it one of the most durable moats in industrial tech; shares hit an all-time high in mid-August, pulled back ~7% with the global tech selloff, closed +1.7% at JPY 82,250 on Aug 25 and were trading -0.8% at JPY 81,600 at 11:14 JST on Aug 26 while the Nikkei rose 0.7% to ~65,560 (no company news; Goldman added it to its APAC Conviction List in early August), about 6% below the record, a better entry.
- ASML:US ASML Holding - buy (high) - ASML is the sole supplier of EUV lithography and raised 2026 guidance for the second time to EUR 43-45B of sales at a 54-56% gross margin after a Q2 beat (EUR 9.3B sales, EUR 2.9B net income). Management says EUV capacity for 2027 is essentially fully booked with significant 2028 orders already in hand while it adds ~30% EUV capacity in 2027, giving rare multi-year revenue visibility in semicap. On Aug 25 BofA reiterated ASML as its top pick, calling the recent selloff unjustified; the ADR closed +0.2% at $1,744.16.
- TER:US Teradyne - accumulate (medium) - Teradyne is the leading supplier of automated test equipment for AI compute and HBM silicon and, via Universal Robots and MiR, the largest Western pure-play in collaborative and mobile robots. Q2 2026 revenue more than doubled to $1.33B (+104% YoY) with gross margin up to 59.8%, operating income up nearly 5x to $441M and EPS of $2.38 vs $0.49 a year ago, while robotics grew 33% to ~$100M; AI-related demand is now roughly 70% of revenue. Shares closed +0.4% at $366.43 on Aug 25 (dividend declared Aug 24) and are ~25% below their 52-week high after the semis selloff, adding physical-AI and semi-test exposure the list lacks.

## Calendar changes

- 2026-08-26-au-monthly-cpi: 2026-08-26 11:30 AEST -> 2026-08-26 11:30 AEST (released)
- added 2026-08-26 MACRO US Treasury $70B 5-year note auction (plus $28B 2-year FRN)
- added 2026-08-27 MACRO US Treasury $44B 7-year note auction
- added 2026-08-27 Samsung Samsung Galaxy Event August 2026: Galaxy S26 FE expected (Exynos 2500, ~$799)
- 2026-08-28-byd-interim-results: 2026-08-28 TBC (HK) -> 2026-08-28 TBC (HK, board meeting 28 Aug; typically after HK close)
- added 2026-09-02 TSM SEMICON Taiwan 2026, Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center (Sep 2-4)

## New news (11)

- 2026-08-26 [negative] MACRO: Australia July CPI 3.5% vs 3.2-3.3% consensus, trimmed mean steady at 3.6%; RBA September hike odds rise to ~27% - Monthly CPI rose 1.0% m/m (0.8% expected) with trimmed mean 0.5% m/m (0.3% expected), fuel +7.5% in the month and housing +5.0% y/y; the ABS says trimmed mean is unchanged at 3.6%, above the RBA's 3.3% year-end forecast. Markets lifted September hike pricing to 27% from 17% and February 2027 to 80%; AUD/USD rose 0.2% to ~0.7176 while the ASX 200 gave up early gains. <https://www.investing.com/news/economic-indicators/australia-july-inflation-slows-less-than-expected-keeping-rba-hike-risks-alive-4876197>
- 2026-08-26 [positive] MACRO: Oil falls a third day on Iran-Oman Hormuz corridor talks; WTI $80.42 (-2.4%), Asia energy stocks slide - Iran and Oman are discussing an interim framework including a temporary navigational corridor and mine clearing for a strait that carried about a fifth of global oil and LNG shipments. Woodside fell more than 4%, Santos ~2%, SK Innovation over 16% and the ASX 200 energy sub-index 2.5%; Brent is $86.41 (-2.5%). <https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/asia-energy-stocks-slide-as-oil-tumbles-on-iranoman-hormuz-talks-4876168>
- 2026-08-26 [positive] BABA: Alibaba HK shares +1.7% to HK$116.10 on placement settlement day, 3% above the HK$112.70 placing price - Hong Kong trading has held above the HK$112.70 placement price with a day range of HK$115.60-117.80 and ~39M shares traded by midday, as the HK$80B placing of 710M shares closes today. Hang Seng +1.0% to 25,757. <https://www.investing.com/equities/alibaba-group-holding-hk>
- 2026-08-26 [neutral] NVDA: Nvidia preview: guide implies ~$91B, consensus $91.7-92.2B and ~$2.08 EPS; guide assumes zero China data-centre revenue, $80B buyback unused - Results land ~6:30am AEST Thursday with the call at 7am AEST. Focus is the Q3 outlook (street ~$104.2B, ~75% gross margin), Blackwell Ultra supply and hyperscaler capex commentary; any China data-centre revenue would be an upside surprise since guidance assumes none. The stock ended a seven-session losing streak on Tuesday, so some optimism is already priced. <https://investinglive.com/stocks/preview-nvidia-reports-q2-results-today-guidance-implies-revenue-near-91-billion/>
- 2026-08-26 [positive] META: Bloomberg: Meta and state AGs have discussed a mid-trial settlement of the teen social media case - Reuters relays a Bloomberg report that Meta and state attorneys general discussed settling in the second week of the Oakland trial; Meta's worst-case estimate is $1.4T of exposure but any deal would be far smaller. Meta has not commented; shares were $567.75 after hours. <https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/meta-us-states-weigh-settlement-in-teen-social-media-addiction-trial--bloomberg-4876188>
- 2026-08-26 [neutral] MU: Micron CEO Mehrotra sold $38.7M of stock under a 10b5-1 plan - Mehrotra sold 39,994 shares at $959-990 on Aug 21 under a plan adopted Jan 30, retaining 264,503 shares directly and 607,075 via GRATs. Routine, but it lands as the stock sits below its 50-day. <https://www.investing.com/news/insider-trading-news/micron-technology-ceo-sanjay-mehrotra-sells-387-million-in-mu-shares-93CH-4876081>
- 2026-08-26 [neutral] OPENAI: 9fin: Goldman Sachs AM arranging $6.6B GPU-backed private debt for OpenAI with Nvidia backstop - A privately placed $6.6B debt package secured on GPUs and supported by an Nvidia backstop is being put together by GSAM. It is debt, not equity, so it does not move the ~$852B mark, but it adds to Nvidia's customer-financing exposure heading into tonight's call. <https://9fin.com/insights/gsam-eyes-gpu-backed>
- 2026-08-25 [positive] GOOGL: Google Cloud launches Gemini Enterprise for Legal in preview - Cleary, Freshfields, Weil and Williams & Connolly are launch customers, with connectors to Harvey, iManage, NetDocuments, RelativityOne, Everlaw and Docusign. Second vertical in a day after Financial Services; supports the Cloud growth case. <https://www.googlecloudpresscorner.com/2026-08-25-Google-Cloud-Launches-Gemini-Enterprise-for-Legal>
- 2026-08-26 [positive] SKHY: SK hynix +1.2% midday Seoul as chipmakers lead Kospi higher into Nvidia - Seoul shares reversed a weak open to KRW 1,698,000 (+1.2%) by 11:20 KST, day range 1,662,000-1,717,000; Kospi +0.9% to 6,804 and Samsung +2.1%. No news yet from the restarted union wage talks; the stock remains ~9% below its 200-day average. ADR last $159.53. <https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10852307>
- 2026-08-26 [positive] ANTHROPIC: Anthropic sought up to 5GW of AI training capacity in NSW, government emails show - ABC obtained a March 18 Infrastructure NSW email saying Anthropic's CEO wanted to discuss locating up to 5GW of AI training capacity in NSW, possibly outside Sydney; Amodei visited two weeks later. NSW says the figure reflected initial interest and was one of several hyperscale approaches. <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/claude-maker-anthropics-massive-data-centre-plans-nsw/107075532>
- 2026-08-26 [positive] 1211.HK: BYD's Fangchengbao off-road brand tripled China sales in Jan-Jul as group growth slows - Nikkei reports Fangchengbao sales tripled year on year over January-July while BYD's overall growth slowed, with the brand's first sedan about to launch. A higher-margin sub-brand growing into Friday's interim results. <https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/electric-cars-in-china/byd-s-fangchengbao-offroad-ev-brand-triples-china-sales>

## Notes

**holdings**: Checked 02:40-03:20 UTC Aug 26. WebSearch budget was exhausted after the first six queries, so the rest ran on WebFetch against quote pages (stockanalysis HK/TPE/KRX, tradingeconomics HSI), Google News RSS per ticker, and investing.com ticker news feeds; Google News redirect links do not resolve via WebFetch, and Reuters, CNBC, AP and Business Insider are blocked, so direct URLs were taken from investing.com, The Standard, 9fin and Google Cloud. Priority checks: BABA HK$116.00 +1.6% at 10:26 HKT (range 115.60-117.80, 41.6M shares), HSI +1% ~25,755-25,778; TSMC 2330 NT$2,405 +0.2% at 10:29 after a -0.4% open; SK hynix W1,697,500 +1.2% and Samsung W259,500 +1.0% at 11:18 KST, Kospi +0.9% at 9:15; Nvidia: no post-22:38 UTC preview beyond BMO $340/Raymond James $352/BofA notes (no direct URL found for BMO, so kept in the reason only); Meta: the Bloomberg settlement-talks report (~01:41 UTC) is the one material overnight change. Quiet: AMZN (the AWS Bahrain item circulating is an April 3 recap), AXOS, ENPH, FIGR, LDI, RKT, NFLX (GTA VI extended look, Rhimes renewal only), MRVL, STRIPE. Not included as news because already covered or stale: Tsai/Ma purchases (Aug 25), Berkshire $10B Alphabet (Aug 8-10 13F), AMD $10B Taiwan packaging (May 21), OpenAI data-center chief exit (known URL). Macro for the indicators agent: Australian July CPI printed 3.5% y/y vs 3.2% consensus with trimmed mean ~3.5%, AUD firmer, September RBA hike stays live (Reuters/FXStreet via Google News, ~01:42 UTC); S&P futures 7,677.25 -0.2%, Nasdaq 100 futures 29,154 -0.4%, Dow futures 53,619 -0.1% at 20:54 ET; US 10-year 4.634%, Brent $86.41 -2%, DXY 98.93, gold $4,646, bitcoin $78,704 (Reuters 22:19 UTC).

**watchlist**: Asia midday (02:40 UTC): SK hynix +1.2% to KRW 1,698,000 after a weak open (Kospi +0.9%, Samsung +2.1%), CATL +1.5% to HK$630.50 (Hang Seng +1.0%), Keyence -0.8% to JPY 81,600 (Nikkei +0.7% at 65,562). Regional tone is cautious-positive ahead of Nvidia (consensus Q2 revenue ~$92B, Q3 guide ~$104B); Brent -2% to $86.41 on Iran-Oman Hormuz talks. No new union-talk news for SK hynix beyond the Aug 25 JoongAng report. Quiet overnight for all US/DE names: no press releases dated Aug 25-26 for ALAB, AVGO, CRDO, BE, GEV, HOOD, NET, SE, MELI, TER, ASML (latest TER item is the Aug 24 dividend, ASML the Aug 24 buyback report); Siemens Energy has had no post-release trading since the Tradegate print and Xetra opens 17:00 AEST, so ENR is unchanged. price_usd refreshed only for CATL (HK$630.50 at the 7.8 peg = $81) and Keyence (JPY 81,600 at ~159 USD/JPY = $513); SKHY kept at the Aug 25 ADR close ($160) because the ADR has not traded since. Candidates: Vertiv's only new item is an Aug 25 notice that it presents at Goldman Communacopia on Sep 8, not a reason to displace anyone; Arista, Nebius, Snowflake, Symbotic, Nextracker, Fluence, Coupang and Rockwell had nothing new in the window. Zero adds, zero removals. Headline candidates left empty because 1-2% moves with no company news are not material. Tooling note: the session web-search budget was exhausted, so this run used direct page fetches (stockanalysis, Google Finance, Yahoo, investing.com, Korea Herald, stocktitan) for every number.

**loves/calendar**: WebSearch budget was exhausted (200/200) at the start of this run, so all checks were done via WebFetch on Google News RSS, Bing News RSS and primary pages; no known_urls.txt exists in the repo (find returned nothing), so dedupe was against the covered list in the brief only. LOVES: Anthropic $30T TAM story broke ~16:00 UTC Aug 25 (about 10.5h ago, older than the 4-6h window) but was not on the covered list, so included; follow-ups ran to 02:17 UTC. Anthropic also: new general counsel (Bloomberg Law, paywalled), Bain partnership (PR Newswire), $5M wellbeing research grants (anthropic.com/news/wellbeing-research-grants), SF staff told to WFH over a security-contractor strike threat; all minor. Apple Mac mini/Studio launch was ~13:00 UTC Aug 25, not on the covered list, so included but may overlap with an earlier holdings/loves pass; Apple stock closed -0.1%. BYD Fangchengbao (Nikkei 20:01 UTC) is within window; BYD M9 people-mover confirmed for Australia (00:00-02:30 UTC, minor, not included). Quiet: Cursor (last blog Aug 18 'Git at any scale', last changelog Aug 19; nothing new), Cloudflare (last blog Aug 24 EmDash; Kitesurf browser dates to Aug 6, AI-agent 1,700% traffic piece is a rehash), Robinhood (only a 10b5-1 sale of Robinhood Ventures Fund I shares at 20:33 UTC and a Goldman Buy reiteration PT $124 from Monday; +8.2% already covered; Trump Accounts app launched July 4, not new), Spotify (AI-persona label is an Aug 11 post resurfacing; fandom/SongDNA covered). CALENDAR: AU CPI confirmed released 11:30 AEST on the ABS page: 3.5% y/y headline, trimmed mean 3.6%, consensus 3.2% (FXStreet) - existing event re-listed with actuals. Salesforce confirmed after close Aug 26 (Business Wire notice via Morningstar). NVIDIA call confirmed 2pm PT Aug 26 (GlobeNewswire notice) - no change needed. BYD board meeting confirmed 28 Aug via TipRanks/Globe and Mail summary of the HKEX notice; HKEX itself not fetched, release time still TBC. Treasury: 5y/7y/2y-FRN verified on TreasuryDirect API; the tentative schedule PDF timed out twice so September 3y/10y/30y (expected Sep 8-10) are NOT added. Oracle Q1 FY27 is Sep 10 (outside window). Meta Connect is ~3 weeks after Sep 2 (outside window). No Kioxia or SK hynix dated events found in window; Samsung Chungnam fab groundbreaking is 'September' with no date. Samsung Galaxy event and SEMICON Taiwan verified via Engadget and Seoul Economic Daily (semicontaiwan.org returned 403, news.samsung.com timed out). ABS 'monthly CPI indicator' page is stale (ABS now publishes a full monthly CPI); link corrected.

**macro**: Checked: ABS media release (CPI 3.5%, trimmed mean 3.6%, housing +5.0%, fuel +7.5% m/m), FXStreet and investinglive CPI reaction (1.0% m/m vs 0.8%, trimmed mean 0.5% m/m vs 0.3%, AUD 0.7172-0.7176), investing.com Australia CPI article (RBA September 27% from 17%, Feb 2027 80%), ABC markets live blog 12:05 AEST (ASX 9,182 +0.19%, AUD 71.74c, Woolworths +4.7%, KPMG/BetaShares/Indeed views: Bassanese 30-40% Sept hike risk), investing.com Asia stocks and Asia energy articles, investing.com Nvidia Rubin/financing article, investinglive Nvidia preview and BOJ poll (57% expect Sept hike to 1.25%, Japan services CPI 3.6%), investing.com quotes at ~12:39 AEST (S&P futures 7,678.25 -0.18%; 10y 4.637%; WTI 80.48 -2.28%; BTC 78,920 -2.14%; AUD/USD 0.7176 +0.17%; Nikkei 65,905.50 +0.07%; Kospi 6,848.34 +1.57%; HSI 25,757 +0.96%; Taiex 45,446.73 +0.61%; ASX 200 9,159.50 -0.06%, day high 9,220.60), stockanalysis quotes (BYD HK$93.00 -0.64% 10:21 HKT; Keyence 81,600 -0.79% 11:14 JST; TSMC NT$2,390 -0.42% 10:17 Taipei; SK hynix 1,697,500 +1.16% and Samsung 259,500 +0.97% at 11:18 KST). Caveats: CATL 3750.HK price is the Aug 25 close (HK$621, -2.74%); no intraday Aug 26 quote was obtainable. TSMC quote is from 10:17 Taipei, Taiex has since risen. No fresh US-side headline on tariffs or the Fed beyond PCE/Warsh timing. Unavailable: CNBC (403), Yahoo quotes (503), MarketWatch (blocked), Reuters/AFR not reachable; WebSearch budget was exhausted after the first batch, so remaining work was WebFetch only.

Nothing here is financial advice. Holdings and opinions are my own; the "agent" sections are written by an automated research skill and may be wrong. Built 2026-08-26 02:53 UTC.