Nvidia drags stocks higher while the rest gets ugly

Nvidia said it expects revenue to grow about 70% in fiscal 2028. The stock jumped more than 7% before the bell, pulled the Nasdaq up 1.5% to 26,541, the S&P 500 up 0.8% to 7,731.

Great day if you only look at tech. But inflation is 3.3%. Wheat up 30% since late June. Copper at a record. Oil above $87. And a sitting Fed official just called for a rate hike, which is not something you hear when things are going well.

The Dow added 0.4%. So the rally is narrow, and you can see it in the numbers, because the Nasdaq did nearly 4 times the Dow's gain, which tells you a handful of names did the work.

The VIX, which tracks how much turbulence traders expect, fell to 14.51.

Now Nvidia. 70% revenue growth guidance sounds enormous. But how much of that demand comes from customers who genuinely need chips right now, and how much from customers ordering extra because they're terrified of shortages? Every chip cycle does this. Buyers hoard. Supply catches up. Orders vanish. And if you own any kind of broad stock fund, you already own this bet whether you chose it or not.

10-year Treasury yield sat at 4.66%. Prices barely moved.

Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack said "now is the time to act" on raising rates. Not cutting. Raising. Kansas City Fed president Jeffrey Schmid called inflation "stubborn" and "sticky" and said he doesn't see current rates holding the economy back. You can read that however you like, but if you've got a mortgage coming up for renewal, those are not the words you wanted to hear today.

GDP growth revised to 1.5%. Prices running hot and the economy slowing, both at once.

And then there's Treasury Secretary Bessent, who has been buying back long-dated government debt, at least $4 billion per round, which pushes down the same long-term borrowing costs the Fed is supposed to control. So who's setting your rate on a 10-year loan? U.S. debt just crossed $40 trillion. $4 billion against that is a rounding error.

France pays roughly 3.6% to borrow for 10 years. Italy over 4.3%. Both near their highest since 2022.

Japan's government debt runs about 260% of its annual output. America's sits at about 125%. And yet Japanese yields have been climbing faster. Why? Because when every big government is out there competing for the same pool of lenders, the ones with the worst balance sheets pay the most. The dollar being the world's reserve currency gives Washington a credit line nobody else gets.

But $40 trillion is still $40 trillion.

Brent crude at $87.56. The U.S.-Iran conflict has dragged on 6 months now, and you can feel it at the pump.

Wheat hit a 3-year high, roughly 30% above its late-June level, because Black Sea disruptions have tightened grain supply. And India's monsoon is the weakest in 17 years. So if that harvest disappoints, India starts importing grain on top of a supply squeeze that's already biting. You buy bread, you buy pasta, you buy cereal, wheat is the commodity that sets the floor on what you pay for all of it.

Spot copper at $6.59 per pound. One copper ETF, a fund that tracks the metal's price, is up nearly 20% this month alone. Best month on record if it holds.

Data centres need enormous amounts of copper wiring. But the tariff story deserves your scepticism, because the White House threatened 50% tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods days ago, then floated possible cuts on metals almost straight away. None has stuck yet. So is this rally about real demand from AI buildout, or is it people scrambling to buy before a tax that may never arrive?

Spot gold at $4,595.04, down from a previous close of $4,623.31. Spot silver $69.02, up from $68.79.

Gold sitting near those levels while stocks are also climbing is not normal. Somebody is buying insurance. Against what, exactly? That's the question you want to keep asking yourself, because equity markets are not pricing in any of the stress you just read about.

Best Buy beat. Revenue $9.8 billion, 1.9% above estimates, EPS $1.47 versus $1.39 expected. Stock barely moved. They'd bought laptops and PCs early before prices rose, which protected margins. Smart purchasing, not a growth story.

TD Bank crushed it. Revenue $16.7 billion against $15.0 billion expected, EPS $2.73 versus $2.44. Record profits. But free cash flow margin, the cash left after all spending, swung to negative 41.2% from positive 37.8% last quarter. That number deserves a second look if you hold the stock.

Pernod Ricard beat its revenue estimate by a wide margin, EPS by about 7%. But $4.2 billion in revenue is still well below the $5.3 billion from a year earlier. Low bar, and 500 million euros in cost savings did a lot of the lifting.

Ageas, Belgian insurer, beat EPS by about 9%. No revenue figure, which is normal for European insurers in early filings.

Warsh speaks at Jackson Hole Friday morning. The bond market wants him to say 2% without hedging it. Whether he mentions Treasury buybacks at all will tell you how comfortable the Fed is with Bessent doing part of its job. Watch the 10-year yield by Friday's close.

Issue compiled from the Thursday, 27 August 2026 desk notes. Page published Friday, 25 September 2026. Metal prices are spot at the time of writing. Figures come from the sources set out in the editorial standards. Corrections: [email protected].

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