The August consumer price index held at 3.4%, and traders didn’t waste time drawing their conclusions: rate hike odds for next week’s Fed meeting jumped to nearly 90%.

Today’s edition breaks it all down.

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You’re looking at one retailer rapidly reinventing itself around collectibles and capital allocation, and one AI giant spending aggressively to build its next growth engine. Elite Trade Club Insider readers are seeing where management money moved next: one CEO bought $20.4 million of stock with fresh capital, while a senior executive at another company filed to sell $13 million through a plan established months ago.

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August’s CPI report confirmed inflation held at 3.4% annually, matching both the prior month and Wall Street estimates, which immediately pushed traders to price in nearly 90% odds of a Fed rate hike at next week’s meeting, with stocks rising on the news in a counterintuitive response that signals the market prefers certainty over ambiguity.

Saudi Arabia shut its East-West crude pipeline after Houthi militants struck the infrastructure, creating a new supply route concern given that the pipeline bypasses the Hormuz blockage and represents one of the kingdom’s main export alternatives. 

Oracle reported cloud infrastructure revenue more than doubled year-over-year and surged, while Dell and HP both gained as the enterprise hardware cycle continues to benefit from AI-driven upgrade demand.

Copart announced a $1.9 billion all-cash acquisition of ACV Auctions at $10.50 per share, a 45% premium to the prior close, confirming the digital auto auction market is worth consolidating even at premium valuations.

Kroger lowered its full-year sales outlook after cautious shoppers bought less and shifted toward cheaper products, though quarterly earnings exceeded expectations and management maintained its annual profit forecast.

Identical sales excluding fuel are now expected to grow 0.5% to 1.5%, down from 1% to 2%, while stronger fuel demand and adjustments to Kroger’s rewards program are helping defend profitability as household budgets remain strained.

Cracker Barrel has narrowed its customer-traffic declines, with year-over-year visits moving from double-digit declines late last year to low-single-digit declines during July and August as the restaurant chain recovers from its branding controversy.

Sales trends have stabilized, and the stock has regained its losses; the company still needs sustained traffic growth and stronger operating results to prove that the rebound extends beyond customers simply moving past last year’s disruption.

SpaceX signed a major AI computing contract with an undisclosed customer that will generate about $1.1 billion per month beginning in December, adding roughly $13 billion in annualized revenue to its expanding infrastructure business.

CFO Bret Johnsen said the agreement strengthens confidence in reaching a $100 billion annualized revenue rate by year-end, as AI hosting joins Starlink and launch services as another major source of recurring revenue.

Rocket Lab’s planned acquisition of Iridium Communications would add an established satellite network and cash-generating communications business, reducing the company’s dependence on rocket launches while its larger Neutron vehicle moves toward its first flight.

The combination would give Rocket Lab launch vehicles, satellite manufacturing, communications infrastructure, and recurring service revenue under one company, creating a broader space platform as demand grows from commercial and government customers.

The FDA extended its review of Exelixis’ cancer combination by three months, setting a March 3, 2027 decision date after updated safety and efficacy information was classified as a major amendment to the application.

Exelixis is seeking approval for zanzalintinib with Roche’s Tecentriq in previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer, making the delay important because the drug is expected to expand the company’s cancer franchise beyond Cabometyx.

Eli Lilly completed its acquisition of AtaiBeckley, adding BPL-003 and other rapid-acting experimental treatments to its neuroscience pipeline as the drugmaker targets difficult mental-health conditions such as treatment-resistant depression.

The transaction includes approximately $2.8 billion in upfront equity value and up to $1 billion in milestone payments, giving Lilly another route into a large market where millions of patients fail to respond adequately to existing medicines.

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Colgate-Palmolive is exploring the sale of several personal care brands, including Softsoap, Irish Spring and Speed Stick, as the consumer-goods company reshapes its portfolio and concentrates resources on stronger businesses.

The brands could fetch more than $1 billion, with Goldman Sachs advising on the process as competitive pressure and a 3% decline in North American organic sales increase the urgency of Colgate’s turnaround.

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen purchased another one million company shares for approximately $20.3 million, increasing his direct ownership to 39.3 million shares after buying the stock through multiple transactions on Thursday.

Cohen now controls roughly 8% of GameStop’s outstanding shares, reinforcing his personal exposure to a retailer that has accumulated a major eBay stake while pursuing a broader transformation beyond its shrinking video game store business.

Tesla’s newly released Semi is gaining support from record diesel prices, with Morgan Stanley arguing that lower operating costs strengthen the electric truck’s appeal as Tesla expands production and works toward autonomous trucking.

The firm estimates that self-driving subscriptions alone could eventually generate $12,000 to $18,000 per truck each month, although reaching those numbers requires Tesla to deliver autonomy that remains unfinished across its passenger vehicles.

Palantir used its latest customer forum to highlight how companies and government agencies are moving its artificial-intelligence software from testing into production, strengthening the commercial case behind its rapid growth.

Nvidia presented a Palantir-built command center designed to manage its AI infrastructure supply chain, while the U.S. Army moved a next-generation targeting system developed with Palantir from the prototype stage into production.

MKDWELL Tech [MKDW] $7.75 (+51.96%) 

MKDWELL designs smart home and IoT manufacturing systems and jumped on 32x its average volume, a spike that does not happen without a product announcement or partnership that the broader market had not yet priced in.

The $265M company carries no analyst rating and negative EPS, but 32x volume on a name this size is institutional-grade interest arriving fast.

ACV Auctions [ACVA] $10.41 (+44.18%)

Copart announced it is acquiring ACV Auctions in an all-cash deal at $10.50 per share, valuing the company at approximately $1.9 billion. ACV Auctions operates a digital wholesale vehicle marketplace connecting dealers to buyers, and Copart — the dominant vehicle remarketing company — is paying a 45% premium to expand into the dealer-to-dealer auction segment it has not previously served.

Both boards approved the transaction, and it’s expected to be accretive to Copart’s earnings in fiscal 2028 and beyond.

Frequency Electronics [FEIM] $88.38 (+42.40%)

Frequency Electronics makes precision timing and synchronization systems for defense satellites, GPS infrastructure, and military electronics. Q1 fiscal 2027 EPS of $0.41 beat the $0.15 consensus by 173%.

Funded backlog reached a record $129 million, reflecting accelerating defense timing system orders. When a defense electronics company beats by 173% on EPS and simultaneously announces a record backlog, the stock moves accordingly.

CPI Card Group [PMTS] $22.50 (-16.48%)

CPI Card Group makes credit and debit cards for US financial institutions and had surged 37.5% in August after delivering on free cash flow despite an earnings miss. Friday’s drop reversed most of those gains after major shareholder Parallel49 Equity announced a secondary sale of up to 2.7 million shares.

The business is sound, the free cash flow is real, and the Q2 guidance raise was legitimate. This is an institutional block trade exiting after a great month.

NuScale Power [SMR] $8.61 (-15.67%)

UBS downgraded NuScale from Neutral to Sell and cut its price target to $6, arguing that while the small modular reactor concept is compelling, NuScale’s estimated five-plus-year build timeline and lack of firm customer commitments present serious challenges as competitors like Kairos Power and X-energy move more directly toward construction contracts.

The SMR sector is real, but UBS is saying NuScale may not be the winner.

SELLAS Life Sciences [SLS] $11.55 (-14.42%)

SELLAS is developing galinpepimut-S, an off-the-shelf cancer vaccine targeting the Wilms Tumor 1 antigen, in a pivotal Phase 3 REGAL trial for acute myeloid leukemia. The CRO confirmed 78 events had occurred in the trial as of May, putting the stock near a binary readout window.

Friday’s drop combines pre-catalyst anxiety with broad speculative biotech selling as rate hike odds jump toward 90% and investors reduce exposure to names with binary outcomes ahead of a hawkish Fed meeting.

The IMF projects U.S. debt could reach roughly 140% of GDP by 2031.

That would put America in territory associated with past sovereign debt crises, and one former Wall Street banker says retirement investors should pay attention now, not later.

His solution is a “financial firewall” designed to reduce exposure to traditional dollar-based assets and diversify risk.

See How to Reduce Your Exposure Before 2030

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— Adam G.
Elite Trade Club

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