Companies are getting more aggressive about where they spend and where they cut. AI is still attracting huge strategic bets, but weaker consumer demand is forcing major brands to rethink costs, capital returns, and entire operating structures.
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Futures at a Glance📈
Futures are moving higher as Fed rate-hike fears ease and Treasury yields cool. Traders are now bracing for Friday’s jobs report, with the labor-market read set to shape expectations for the Fed’s September meeting.
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What to Watch
Earnings (Premarket):
· KNOT Offshore Partners LP [KNOP]
Earnings (Time Not Supplied):
· KT Corporation [KT]
· NioCorp Developments Ltd. [NB]
· Imperial Petroleum Inc. [IMPP]
· HomesToLife Ltd. [HTLM]
· Hurco Companies, Inc. [HURC]
· Virco Manufacturing Corporation [VIRC]
· North European Oil Royalty Trust [NRT]
· Zone Frontier Inc. [ZONE]
· The Children's Place, Inc. [PLCE]
Economic Reports:
· Employment report (August): 8:30 am
· Unemployment rate (August): 8:30 am
· Average hourly earnings, month over month (August): 8:30 am
· Average hourly earnings, year over year (August): 8:30 am
Elite Trade Club Insider
A Director Bought $6.55 Million Just After A $17 Billion Deal
You’re looking at one company making the biggest acquisition in its history and another marketplace finally showing signs of renewed growth. Elite Trade Club Insider readers are seeing what happened underneath those stories: one director voluntarily put $6.55 million into the stock immediately after a massive strategic bet, while three insiders at another company sold roughly $3 million through transactions that were largely decided months ago.
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Market Pulse
Waller Gives the Bond Market Some Breathing Room
Fed Governor Christopher Waller said he is leaning toward keeping rates unchanged in September if inflation continues to cool. That pushed back against the market’s recent hawkish shift and helped Treasury yields retreat, although Waller made clear that another hot inflation reading could quickly put a hike back on his side of the table.
Services Inflation Is Refusing to Cooperate
Layoffs remain low and the labor market still looks relatively stable, but service-sector input costs climbed to their highest level in three years. That combination gives the Fed an awkward mix: the economy is not weakening enough to force its hand, while stubborn price pressure makes declaring victory on inflation equally difficult.
Retail & Brands
Lululemon’s New CEO Inherits a Much Bigger Turnaround
Lululemon cut its annual sales and profit forecasts again as weakness spread across North America and China. Sales of its signature leggings fell roughly 20%, putting incoming CEO Heidi O’Neill under immediate pressure to refresh the product lineup and win shoppers back from faster-growing rivals such as Alo Yoga and Vuori.
Campbell’s Cuts the Dividend to Fund Its Fix
Campbell’s is closing plants, cutting jobs, raising selected prices, and targeting $500 million of savings by fiscal 2030 after another weak quarter. The company also cut its quarterly dividend from 39 cents to 25 cents, a significant reset as management prioritizes debt reduction and tries to revive brands facing increasingly price-sensitive consumers.
Autos & Mobility
Volkswagen Signs Off on Its Biggest Restructuring Ever
Volkswagen reached a sweeping turnaround agreement with its supervisory board that calls for another 50,000 job cuts, bringing planned reductions across the group to 100,000. The future of four German plants remains unresolved, but management now has considerably more room to attack costs as Chinese competitors and weak European demand squeeze margins.
Autonomous Trucks Are Heading Back to the SPAC Market
PlusAI agreed to go public at an $800 million valuation through a merger with Texas Ventures Acquisition III. The company is targeting a 2027 commercial launch for its Level 4 autonomous-driving system, putting a public-market valuation on a self-driving truck industry finally moving from years of testing toward actual freight operations.
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Finance & Deals
Germany Is Finally Warming to a European Banking Mega-Deal
Berlin’s resistance to UniCredit taking over Commerzbank appears to be softening after years of opposition. UniCredit now controls just under half of Commerzbank, and Germany’s willingness to engage could encourage more cross-border consolidation as European lenders look for enough scale to absorb rising technology and compliance costs.
Citi Is Getting Closer to a Bigger China Business
Citigroup expects it could receive approval for a wholly owned Chinese brokerage as soon as this month. Citi plans to roughly double the unit’s headcount to around 100 and compete with JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley across underwriting, trading, research, and domestic equity-market deals.
AI & Infrastructure
Nvidia Spends $13 Billion to Move Beyond Chips
Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, giving it ownership of one of the most important platforms for open AI models and developer tools. The strategic logic goes beyond software revenue: controlling a major gateway used by AI developers could keep Nvidia closer to future workloads as its biggest customers increasingly design chips of their own.
A $67 Billion Utility Merger Clears Its Shareholder Vote
Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy shareholders approved their proposed $66.8 billion merger, leaving regulatory approval as the next major hurdle. Dominion serves the world’s largest concentration of data centers in Virginia, making surging electricity demand from AI infrastructure a central part of the strategic case for creating one of the world’s largest utilities.
Trivia: Exchange-traded funds have become the dominant vehicle for retail and institutional investors alike. But the first ETF wasn't American — it launched three years before the famous SPDR S&P 500 ETF. Where, and when?
- The first ETF launched in Tokyo in 1988 as part of Japan's effort to modernize its securities markets after the 1987 crash
- The first ETF launched in Hong Kong in 1987, designed to track the Hang Seng Index and sold exclusively to institutional investors
- The first ETF launched in London in 1990 on the London Stock Exchange, designed to give European investors access to the U.S. equity market
- The first ETF launched in Canada in 1990 on the Toronto Stock Exchange — the Toronto 35 Index Participation Units. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) launched in the U.S. in January 1993.
Movers and Shakers
AMC Entertainment [AMC]: Premarket Move: +15%
AMC surged amid another burst of retail-trader interest after CEO Adam Aron publicly challenged Robinhood over its tokenized version of AMC shares. Aron said AMC had no involvement in the product and asked outside securities counsel to examine the issue, putting the longtime meme stock back in the spotlight and helping trigger another round of speculative trading.
Samsara [IOT]: Premarket Move: +14%
Samsara jumped after second-quarter results topped expectations and management raised its full-year outlook. Revenue climbed 30% to $508.4 million, annual recurring revenue reached $2.13 billion, and the company added a record 20 customers generating more than $1 million in ARR, highlighting continued momentum among its largest customers.
Equifax [EFX]: Premarket Move: −5%
Equifax fell after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were directed to allow all lenders to use the competing VantageScore model. The move increases competition in mortgage credit scoring, while housing regulator Bill Pulte also criticized the major credit bureaus over consumer pricing and raised the possibility of additional reforms, adding another layer of uncertainty for Equifax.
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Everything Else
📊 Ten stocks are showing the exact order flow patterns analysts associate with serious institutional accumulation and the tape suggests the buying is far from over.
💳 PayPal cut about 220 jobs in India as part of a broader restructuring aimed at simplifying the payments company’s operations.
⛏️ Lynas Rare Earths revealed it held takeover talks earlier this year, highlighting growing strategic interest in rare-earth assets outside China.
💊 Cipla signed an exclusive U.S. partnership with China’s Qilu Pharmaceutical to launch a biosimilar version of Merck’s blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda.
🧬 Teva said its experimental celiac-disease treatment met its main trial goal in a mid-stage study, sending its U.S.-listed shares higher.
🛒 Shoprite reported a 12.2% earnings increase and announced acquisitions including coffee chain Vida e Caffè as Africa’s largest supermarket group expands beyond grocery retail.
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