1Softer core inflation cut October hike odds to one in three, but long yields kept rising
Kalshi's contract on a 25bp hike at the 28 October Fed meeting last traded at 34 cents, down from 45 cents a day earlier. The hold contract rose from 55 to 66 cents. Both are deep markets: about 506,000 and 447,000 contracts changed hands in 24 hours, on more than 750,000 of open interest each. Polymarket agrees, with no change at 65.5% (up 7 points) and a hike at 33.5% (down 8), on roughly $1.2m of 24-hour volume across the two outcomes. Two days ago the hike sat near 70%.
The trigger was the August core inflation print. FRED shows the core PCE price index at 130.455, up 0.25% on July and 3.0% on a year earlier. Schaeffer's and Yahoo Finance both reported it as cooler than expected. Payroll processor ADP's September report also beat, according to Futu's pre-market summary. A cool price print plus firm hiring is the mix that lets a central bank wait.
The long end did not follow the front end down. FRED shows the 10-year yield at 5.26% on 29 September, and Yahoo Finance reported it at 5.29% overnight, with the 30-year at a 24-year high. The gap between 10-year and 2-year yields widened to 0.41 points on 30 September, from 0.37 the day before. Reuters reported the dollar at a three-month high. December still leans to a hike: Kalshi prices it at 71 cents, barely changed.
Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick, on The Compound's Animal Spirits, framed the puzzle. The 10-year rose from about 4% to above 5.2% this year while the S&P 500 is still up about 13%. Batnick's read is that rates are rising because investors believe the AI spending boom. He cited the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracking third-quarter growth near 5%. He also drew a line: "If the 10-year is 5.6% next week, I don't see how the market doesn't" fall. Felix Prehn, on Felix & Friends, read the slowdown elsewhere. He said US real-estate job openings roughly halved to about 50,000 in August, which he argued gives the Fed cover to stop hiking.
Political pressure added a third force. President Trump posted that Fed Chair Jerome Powell should resign over an inspector-general report on the Fed headquarters renovation. He tied the attack directly to "his High Interest Rate Policy." Abroad, tightening continued: Equity Mates reported Australia's central bank lifted its cash rate to 4.6%, its fourth hike this year.
So what: the policy leg and the bond leg have split for a second day. A pause is now the base case, yet long yields rose anyway. If Batnick is right that growth is driving yields, a pause changes little for the long end. If the long end is pricing persistent inflation, a pause would make it worse. Friday's payrolls test the first reading.
2Micron beat on every line, and the index still rests on a narrow set of winners
Micron reported after the close on 30 September. AskTraders and TradingView reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $54.2bn, with first-quarter guidance of $61.5bn. TradingKey reported a gross margin of 86.8%, ahead of expectations. CNBC reported data-centre revenue up about eleven-fold. The after-hours reaction was split: Yahoo Finance and Stocktwits reported lower on a bigger capital-spending forecast, while TradingKey reported shares reversing to a 2% gain. Nasdaq futures were up 1.16% overnight, per Yahoo Finance. That points to a read-through to AI hardware broadly, not just one stock.
Underneath the index the picture is narrower. Carlson cited Jason Goepfert's work: the S&P 500 has held within 1% of a record while more than 70% of its members sit at least 10% below their highs. The only other time in 30 years was just before the dot-com peak. Carlson added a caveat from Duality Research: 21 of the 28 names on the new-lows list are utilities, staples and real-estate stocks. Those are the sectors that higher rates hurt directly. So the damage is concentrated where rates bite, not spread evenly.
The sources disagree on how narrow it is. Prehn said 82% of S&P 500 stocks are down. Batnick, using YCharts data, put the share of S&P 500 stocks down this year at about 40%, with 35% beating the index. The two figures likely use different windows, and neither source said which. Treat the direction as agreed and the size as unresolved.
Rate-sensitive financials are where the selling shows. Batnick said Carlyle fell from about $70 a year ago to about $40, and Blue Owl is testing new lows. He cited private-credit funds at Apollo and Morgan Stanley facing redemption requests of about 15% and 11%. Carlson pointed to a second pressure: AI shopping agents cancelling unused subscriptions. He said that is why a "consumer inertia" basket including Planet Fitness and the New York Times has sold off.
So what: Micron's numbers answered the demand question for memory. They did not widen the rally. The index can keep rising on a few names while the rate-sensitive half of the market keeps falling.
3Anthropic's leaked filing prices $4.6bn of revenue at about $2 trillion as other IPOs pull back
Ed Elson, on Prof G Markets, summarised a draft prospectus that Reuters obtained. It shows 2025 revenue of $4.6bn, up more than tenfold, an operating loss of $8bn and a net loss of $42bn. About $34bn of that net loss was a non-cash charge from revaluing financing instruments. Close to a quarter of revenue came from two customers. The listing is expected in November at about $2 trillion, which would be the largest IPO valuation on record. Yahoo Finance said the leak weighed on stocks on Tuesday.
Paul Kedrosky of SK Ventures called it "a ridiculous price." His argument is not that the business is bad. He said the offering is no longer a financing event but a sale by insiders to retail investors and quick-flip institutions. He expects the company to report profit excluding model-training costs, which he called "earnings before bad things." He also said he holds a standing bet that the IPO does not happen at all. These are one investor's views on numbers that are a year old; 2026 figures have not been published.
The broader IPO window is narrowing. Elson reported that Oura, the smart-ring maker, paused a $2.2bn listing despite an order book reported at four times covered. He said it is the third company this month to halt IPO plans. Jay Ritter of the University of Florida told the show that most companies that pause an IPO never list. Kedrosky argued institutions are selling other holdings to make room for the giant deal.
So what: a $2 trillion listing would need cash from somewhere. If Kedrosky is right, that cash comes out of the rest of the market before November. Smaller issuers are already stepping back.
4Washington is steering $200bn of Korean money into US nuclear and gas power while oil eases
President Trump posted that South Korea agreed to launch $200bn of US investment under last year's trade deal. The largest piece is a $120bn programme for eight large reactors: six Westinghouse AP1000 units and two Korean APR-1400s. Westinghouse is not separately listed. The package adds $50bn for the Alaska LNG project and a $22bn, 6.4-gigawatt gas-fired plant in Encinal, Texas. NHK reported the same announcement.
Oil eased as the investment news broke. Reuters reported prices dipping as Gulf exports recovered, with US-Iran diplomacy in focus. Elson put Brent near $102 after the administration ordered an emergency reserve release. Polymarket prices the US-Iran ceasefire holding through 31 October at 57.5%, down 3 points, on about $79,000 of 24-hour volume. It prices the ceasefire holding through 7 October at 90%.
Prehn argued high oil now helps the US more than it hurts. He said the US out-produced Saudi Arabia by about 66% last year, so a higher price is a transfer to domestic producers. He pointed to EOG Resources and Exxon Mobil as improving businesses. He hedged it by saying he is not telling viewers what to do.
So what: the announced projects are multi-year builds, not near-term demand. The oil story is moving the other way, toward lower prices if exports keep recovering. The ceasefire market sliding while oil falls is the tension to watch.
What the sources recommended
Only three buys and three sells came out of five videos, and most carry a caveat from the person making them. Ross Givens, on his channel, laid out a case for GameStop after insiders bought about $48m of stock in September. He said cash, bitcoin and a stake in eBay cover most of the share price, leaving the business at about seven times free cash flow. He set the May high near $35 as a reference, about 50% above the current price. He also said he does not know why chief executive Ryan Cohen is buying. Michael Batnick, on The Compound, said he bought the long-bond ETF thirty minutes before recording. He added that he "will probably get run over" and that it is not a call that rates have peaked. Equity Mates added Codan , an Australian drone-communications and gold-detector maker listed on the ASX, to its community portfolio. The hosts called it "purely a momentum play" with no scheduled catalyst until early next year.
On the sell side, Batnick said he sold Netflix at about a 20% loss and Spotify . He described it as tidying small personal positions, not a view on either business. Kedrosky's warning on Anthropic amounts to avoiding the IPO at the reported price. On Equity Mates, Henry Jennings of Marcus Today suggested a listener might take some profits in Wesfarmers and Macquarie Group. That was framed as general advice on one portfolio.
Friday's payrolls decide whether the softer inflation reading holds
Kalshi prices September payrolls above 100,000 at 47 cents and above 50,000 at 71 cents, down from 76. August added about 162,000 jobs, per FRED. The data is due before Friday's open. A strong print would revive hike odds that fell 11 points in a day. A weak one would make the real-estate job losses Prehn highlighted look like the leading edge. Today brings Accenture and Acuity results before the open and Nike after the close. Reuters reports OPEC+ is set to hold output targets at Sunday's meeting.
