Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
🛢️ Brent tops $100 on China fuel export ban
📉 UK borrowing costs hit highest since 1998
💵 Visa, Stripe back new $1B stablecoin
💎 Google unveils Gemini 4 Argon to top coding benchmark
💾 Micron revenue soars 379% on AI memory demand
Plus: 🌍 9 macro stories, 🏢 10 corporate stories, and 📑 6 research & reports.
| 🛢️ Brent tops $100 on China fuel export ban LINK |
- Brent crude climbed 2.4% to $100.36 a barrel today, reversing an earlier loss, after a report that Chinese refiners suspended October fuel exports tightened markets already strained by conflict.
- Reuters reported that state major PetroChina canceled several gasoline and jet fuel shipments slated for October to protect domestic supplies, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate rose 2.5% to $92.70; CNBC could not verify the report.
- Crude supply fears had been easing as Saudi Arabia resumed loadings from its Red Sea port of Yanbu via its restarted East-West Pipeline, a workaround while Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, though analysts say that pipeline is far from full capacity.
| 📉 UK borrowing costs hit highest since 1998 LINK |
- UK government borrowing costs jumped to their highest level since 1998, with 10-year gilt yields hitting 6.07% in morning trading today, dragging London's FTSE 100 down 2% as a global bond sell-off spilled into stock markets.
- Yields rise when bond prices fall, and higher yields mean it costs more for the government to borrow, intensifying pressure on Chancellor John Healey ahead of his first Budget later this month amid Britain's rising debt pile.
- The rout spread across Europe, with Germany's Dax and France's Cac 40 both off 1.3%, and the US 10-year yield hit its highest since 2002, even as Brent crude slipped 2% to $99.9 a barrel, offering bond markets no lasting relief.
| 💵 Visa, Stripe back new $1B stablecoin LINK |
- Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase and Shopify launched a jointly owned stablecoin, Open USD, which went live yesterday across four blockchains with the five founding partners pledging more than $1 billion to support its liquidity.
- Rather than keeping the interest earned on reserves, as market leaders do, Open Standard says it will hand most of its equity to partners based on how much they grow the coin's supply and transaction volume, with creation and redemption carrying no fees.
- The threat to incumbents is already showing: Mizuho cut Circle's price target to $50 from $85 and downgraded it to Underperform in July, citing Open USD, though Coinbase, Visa and Mastercard still back Circle's USDC too.
| 💎 Google unveils Gemini 4 Argon to top coding benchmark LINK |
- Alphabet yesterday unveiled Gemini 4 Argon, its latest AI model, positioning it against rivals from OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI on coding, cybersecurity and professional-work tasks.
- Google is already running Argon internally to manage memory at its data centers, freeing up hundreds of terabytes without buying new hardware, and says it tops a real-world software-engineering benchmark while tying for first in cybersecurity.
- The rollout is phased, starting with trusted cybersecurity partners and U.S. government safety checks before public release, coming a day after CEO Sundar Pichai signed a voluntary AI-safety agreement with President Trump at the White House.
| 💾 Micron revenue soars 379% on AI memory demand LINK |
- Micron posted record quarterly revenue of $54.23 billion, up 379% from a year earlier, as AI demand for its memory chips far outstripped supply and pushed earnings per share above what Wall Street had expected.
- DRAM chips generated a record $39.8 billion, nearly three-quarters of sales, with prices rising by a high-teens percentage; the only US maker of high-bandwidth memory says customers have locked in more than 75% of its 2027 output.
- Despite the beat, shares traded flat at about $1,065 after hours, investors had priced in the result after a 500%-plus gain over the past year, with the next leg hinging on how fast new fabs in Idaho and New York start shipping.
🌍 Macro News
- Fed's preferred inflation measure cooled, core prices rose 3% year-over-year in August. LINK
- US private employers added 90,000 jobs in September, beating forecasts. LINK
- Senate Democrats blocked Republican bill shielding households from datacenter energy costs. LINK
- Bailey says regulators must retain intervention rights against AI financial-stability risks. LINK
- Middle East conflict-driven fuel prices are accelerating inflation across major euro economies. LINK
- White House reviews CFTC proposals defining prediction contracts and excluding casino-style products. LINK
- UK regulator opens crypto authorization applications ahead of 2027 oversight regime. LINK
- SEC eases accredited-investor rules, widening retail access to private markets. LINK
- Fed finalizes stress-test rules increasing transparency and smoothing big-bank capital swings. LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- Tesla secures $30 billion credit to fund robotaxi, robot, truck production. LINK
- ElevenLabs doubles valuation to $22 billion as AI voice startup grows. LINK
- Synopsys gains after OpenAI partnership to automate semiconductor design workflows. LINK
- Apple CEO considers management cuts and year-round product launches, report says. LINK
- Stripe to acquire Parafin, expanding small-business lending across its platform network. LINK
- BMW plans 20% management cuts as AI supports restructuring and margin recovery. LINK
- Vultr's $1.2 billion order gives HPE's AMD AI racks first commercial sale. LINK
- Sycamore nears $9 billion Boots sale to Canada's Weston family. LINK
- Valley National to buy small-business digital bank Bluevine for about $340 million. LINK
- FTC investigates whether OpenAI and Anthropic AI systems threaten US consumers. LINK
📈 Stocks
| ▲ Biggest winners |
| United Therapeutics rose 13% after a federal court ruled that Liquidia infringed its patent covering inhaled treprostinil for PH-ILD. LINK |
| FormFactor rose 10% after preliminary Q3 revenue of $208 million beat guidance. LINK |
| Cboe Global Markets rose 5% after securing a 25-year extension of its exclusive S&P 500 index options license through 2051. LINK |
| ▼ Biggest losers |
| Cerebras Systems fell 9% after a SemiAnalysis report claimed OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol Ultrafast runs on Nvidia GPUs rather than Cerebras chips. LINK |
| Hut 8 fell 7% after Q2 revenue missed estimates at $74.9M. LINK |
| Moderna fell 5% after Citi downgraded the stock to Sell. LINK |
📑 Research & Reports
- AI speeds collections and payments but cannot fix external cash-flow bottlenecks. LINK
- Tokenization is creating distinct, round-the-clock markets as institutional adoption accelerates, Dune says. LINK
- Singapore crypto economy grew 55% to $284 billion, leading regional markets. LINK
- Goldman shifts expected Fed rate hike to December after cooler inflation. LINK
- BofA warns Meta's Muse could threaten Apple's long-term position despite iPhone strength. LINK
- Heavy US junk-bond issuance pushes investors' demanded risk premium to five-month high. LINK