1A surprise energy ceasefire knocked oil lower, but bond yields stopped taking their cue from crude weeks ago
On Sunday the President posted that an "ENERGY CEASEFIRE" between Russia and Ukraine was in effect "immediately", and that both sides had agreed. Reuters reported that the announcement surprised Ukraine's President Zelenskiy. The posts and reports did not spell out the ceasefire's scope. Overnight, November WTI crude fell 1.1% to $90.81, while S&P 500 futures rose 0.3%, Yahoo Finance showed.
Prediction markets read it as a narrow deal, not a peace. Polymarket prices a full Russia–Ukraine ceasefire by 31 December at 11.5%, up 3 points, on about $37,000 of 24-hour volume. A contract on WTI closing Monday higher fell 19 points to 32.5%. The chance of WTI touching $100 in October fell 4 points to 33.5%, on about $70,000 traded. So traders took a few dollars of risk out of oil without pricing an end to the war.
The Gulf has not calmed, and it keeps the oil risk two-sided. A second attack hit a Saudi airport on Sunday, a day after a Houthi strike killed 12, Reuters reported. The US Federal Aviation Administration told airlines to take care on Saudi flights. Iran called the US response to its proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz "insufficient". Polymarket prices Hormuz traffic returning to normal by 31 December at 14.5%, down 2 points, on about $110,000 of volume. The International Energy Agency urged more releases of diesel as that market tightens, Bloomberg reported.
The bigger point came from Brent Kochuba of SpotGamma, on Excess Returns. Oil fell from $104 to about $90, he said, yet the 10-year Treasury yield kept rising, to 5.35% earlier last week. "If you would have told me that oil goes from 104 to 90," he said, he would have expected yields to fall. He thinks only a drop toward $75 would pull yields down again. FRED had the 10-year at 5.22% on 8 October, down from 5.28%. The dollar sits near an 18-month high, Reuters reported. Kochuba's explanation is that yields now reflect growth and AI-funding demand more than oil-driven inflation. He also called that reading a "quagmire" for policymakers.
So what: a cheaper barrel helps the inflation numbers at the margin. But if yields no longer follow oil down, the ceasefire does little for borrowing costs. Wednesday's CPI tests which force is driving the bond market.
2The index is calm and unhedged going into CPI, bank results and Friday's options expiration
Kochuba laid out how quiet the stock market is. One-month realised volatility in the S&P 500 is about 10, with the VIX near 15. A gauge of how tightly stocks move together sits below 8, a level he usually treats as a cue to add hedges. Traders are selling puts on single stocks, which leaves market makers holding positions that dampen moves. "Nobody's really hedging much," Jack Forehand said on the same episode.
Underneath, the market is narrow. Forehand cited Katie Stockton's figure that the S&P 500 hit a record while about 70% of its stocks sat below their 50-day averages. A Yahoo Finance piece made the same point another way: strip out AI stocks, and the US market lags Europe. The semiconductor ETF lost about 7% from Tuesday to Friday, Kochuba said. That followed a Financial Times report that OpenAI's annualised revenue is about $50 billion, not the $70 billion expected. Call buying in tech names fell sharply after it.
Kochuba set his own map for the next two weeks. The S&P 500 pivot is 7,700. Below it, he expects dealers to sell into weakness, with 7,400 the downside target. Resistance into expiration is 7,825, and he sees "no real resistance" above that, with 8,000 possible by the November expiration if yields ease. Monthly options expire on Friday 16 October and VIX options on 20 October. About two-thirds of the time, he said, the market reverses its pre-expiration direction afterwards. His two expressions are long calls for November–December, which he called cheaper than the index, and put spreads on the Russell 2000 , the most rate-sensitive index.
So what: calm positioning means a surprise travels further, in either direction. Kochuba himself notes the sharpest recent moves were rallies, so a soft inflation print could squeeze stocks as easily as a hot one could break 7,700.
3Four AI suppliers look cheap on earnings, and each is waiting on a different proof point
Brian, a former Amazon and Target executive, on Business with Brian, framed four AI names as "coiled springs". In each one, he argues, the business has run ahead of the stock.
Amazon is the largest. AWS grew 37% a year to about $42 billion a quarter, its fastest in about 4.5 years. But Amazon is spending about $220 billion this year, mostly on data centres, and free cash flow has fallen to roughly zero. Brian strips out about $80 billion of paper gains on Amazon's Anthropic stake and gets a price-to-earnings ratio of about 31. The big funds he tracks cut their Amazon shares by about 9% last quarter. He rates it a small buy, but says he is not adding because he already holds a large position from his time at the company.
Broadcom grew AI chip sales about 220% in a year, to almost $17 billion a quarter. It has about $179 billion of orders that customers cannot cancel. Yet the stock is up only about 4% this year. The reason, Brian says, is who the orders come from. About $120 billion came from one contract, and Anthropic is expected to be the biggest buyer next year. Broadcom has agreed to lend Anthropic up to $42 billion and to back up to $29 billion of its rack leases. Brian concedes the "circular economy" criticism is right "in many ways". That is the same financing loop Kochuba flagged in claim 2, seen from the bull side.
SanDisk grew sales about 175% to roughly $20 billion and trades at about seven times next year's expected earnings. Signed orders more than doubled in about four months to roughly $91 billion. Brian makes his own skeptic's case alongside the call. Those contracts cover only a quarter to a third of next year's sales, and the funds he tracks cut their stakes by nearly 30%. He is buying gradually because the stock has moved 10% or more in a day over 30 times this year.
Applied Digital is his speculative pick. It has about $36 billion of signed leases, mostly 15 years long. Rent rose about 50% in three months to roughly $66 million a quarter, but by his maths it still falls about $90 million a year short of the interest bill. He values it at $10–14 billion once all five campuses run, against about $7 billion today. He calls that "not a price target". About one in five tradeable shares is sold short.
One disclosure matters here. A segment of the video was paid for by Greenland Mines , a $69 million exploration company, and is not one of the four picks.
So what: the four calls share one dependency, which is that AI customers keep paying. Taiwan Semiconductor reports on Thursday 15 October. Brian named it the first read on whether Broadcom's orders are holding.
4Robotaxis either make Uber the aggregator or cut it out of the ride
Bill Ackman's Pershing Square holds 17 positions, and Uber is the largest, Equity Mates hosts Bryce and Ren reported after interviewing him in New York. Ackman's thesis is that riders will not download a separate app for each robotaxi company. In that case, Uber aggregates the fleets and removes its biggest cost, the driver. The hosts named the opposite risk. If one or two operators dominate a city, riders may simply use that operator's app. The episode describes Ackman's portfolio; it is not a call from the hosts. Pershing recently sold Alphabet after tripling its money and added Netflix, Visa and Mastercard, they said.
So what: Uber's outcome turns on how many autonomous fleets survive. Several survivors favour the aggregator; one or two dominant ones do not.
What the sources recommended
Six single-name calls came out of three videos, and every one carries a condition from the person making it. Brian, on Business with Brian, rated , and as buys to accumulate in stages. He rated a small buy that he is not acting on himself. His Applied Digital call is explicitly speculative, and Broadcom depends on its customers paying. Kochuba, on Excess Returns, expressed a bullish view on through November–December calls and a bearish one on the Russell 2000 through put spreads. Both are conditional on his 7,700 level.
Wednesday's inflation print and Thursday's TSMC results test both arguments
Monday is Columbus Day. US stock markets are open, but the bond market is closed. Bank earnings start on Tuesday 13 October before the open: JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, plus UnitedHealth and Johnson & Johnson. September CPI arrives on Wednesday 14 October before the open, alongside Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock and ASML. Kochuba placed CPI on the 13th, but Kalshi's contract settles on the 14th, matching the calendar.
Kalshi prices headline CPI rising more than 0.5% in September at 59¢, down from 64¢, on open interest of about 420,000 contracts. Above 0.6% fell to 15¢ from 20¢. The annual rate above 3.6% rose to 51¢ from 47¢. Lower oil on Sunday trimmed the hot monthly tail without changing the annual picture. On the Fed, Kalshi has October as a hold at 85¢. December prices a 25bp hike at 70¢, down from 74¢, on open interest of about 126,000.
TSMC reports on Thursday 15 October, then Charles Schwab, PNC and US Bancorp. Options expire on Friday 16 October. The Fed meets on 27–28 October, and the midterms follow on 3 November.
