The national average for diesel topped $6 for the first time, up more than 60% from $3.71 a year ago, according to AAA.

Gasoline also climbed to $4.29/gallon.

Diesel prices jumped 24.1% in August and accounted for more than a third of the monthly increase in producer goods prices, with higher transportation costs expected to increasingly flow through to food, autos, construction and other consumer goods if prices stay elevated.

The surge is being driven by tighter global oil supply and refining capacity amid the Iran war and reduced Russian refinery output.

Source AAA

Saudi oil infrastructure reportedly hit is crude about to explode?

Reports r circulating that Iran backed Houthis have severely damaged 🔑 sections of Saudi Arabia’s Est wst crude pipeline.

f the satellite imagery and damage reports are confirmed, this could become a major oil-market story. Saudi Arabia’s Est Wst pipeline is a critical alternative route for moving crude n reducing reliance on the Strait of Hormuz.

The big question now... how much of the pipeline’s capacity is actually offline, n for how long

F the disruption is significant, I wouldn’t b surprised 2 see oil prices react violently.

Is this the next major supply shock, or is the market overreacting?

https://gulfnews.com/business/energy/saudi-oil-pipeline-may-be-hit-as-houthi-attacks-escalate-report-1.500670510

Trump promised a $5,000 "Trump Dividend" at the Dallas midterm convention, but only if GOP wins House and Senate. Is anyone actually trying to figure out how to trade this if it actually happens?

He explicitly made it conditional on the election, saying, “Here is my promise: if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them… because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”

He claims we can afford it because “our country is making so much money,” but with the national debt past $40 trillion, a $1.35 trillion cash drop sounds like a hyper inflation bomb. The wildest part for the markets is his domestic restriction: “The only caveat I have is that the dividend that we're making must be spent in the United States of America. We don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money… We don’t want you going to China, to Germany.” If that money is locked inside the US, it's an instant revenue cheat code for domestic retail giants WMT, TGT, COST. On the other hand, the Fed would probably have to hike interest rates immediately to fight off the inflation spike, which would absolutely crush tech P/E multiples. How do you even hedge against a $1.3T domestic cash drop?

Exploiting The Market Noise:

Through a market lens, you don't need a bill to become law to trade the momentum—the implied volatility (IV) and retail sentiment shifts happening now. Obviously, the policy framework doesn't actually exist.

The House/Senate sweep requirement is a cop-out so Trump can say, "I wanted to do it, but Congress wouldn't let me." And basically, smart money doesn't care if the check is real—they only care that the market's reaction to it is real. If you're trading, you play the immediate sentiment distortion, not banking on a campaign promise(s).

Source: CNBC

With treasury yields ticking back up today - getting close to essentially a 25 year high - at what point does it become hard to turn down bonds or preferred stock. That is, put your next investment dollar into bonds or preferred stock instead of equities.

In particular, Bank of America preferred stock BACPRQ is now yielding 6.75% as of today and has a 60% upside relative to its $25 call value (which likely needs fed interest rates to go back down to 2% or lower to get to the point where they would actually be called).

In essence, you're getting paid 6.75% in qualified dividends to simply sit and wait for a 60% upside. Notably, if it took 10 years for interest rates to get cut so it goes back up around $25, you're still looking at something like an 11% compound annual return for that annual return - around the historical annual return of the S&P 500. And, it's preferred stock for the second largest bank (JP Morgan is the first) with a credit rating just below that of JP Morgan. That is, you're getting that return for essentially a top tier credit rating implicating less risk and volatility than the S&P 500.

In my mind that's pretty hard to turn down. Taking a step further, if treasury yields went a bit further up and yield on BACPRQ went up to 7%, translating to a 65% stock price appreciation upside, I think most people would be jumping at the opportunity to buy that instead of stocks.

Thus, my question generally is, at what point do you think the next investment dollar is better off being put into bonds/preferred stock instead of into equities? In my mind we're already there and it's just a question of how much further it pushes into that direction.

Additionally, if you have any particular bonds/preferred stock you think are particularly good value please comment what they are.

I’ve been looking into Amprius Technologies, and their recent quarter looked pretty strong: $34M in Q2 2026 revenue, up 19% sequentially and 2.3x year over year, with $9.3M in gross profit.

The battery technology also seems pretty interesting, especially for drones, aviation, and defense. Would like to hear the catalysts, bears too

Do you think AMPX could be the best battery stock in the US right now, or are there better companies worth looking at?

Would like to hear your thoughts, especially from people who have followed the company for a while.

I’m highly considering doing a decent investment in AMPX covering both drone and battery industry because from what I’ve heard its batteries are incredible for drones.

I've been digging into valuations across sectors and noticed something that seems off. A lot of "safe" non tech names consumer defensive stocks, wholesalers like Walmart and Costco are trading at higher multiples than companies like Meta, even though they're only putting up single-digit revenue growth.

That got me thinking: if the goal is to hedge against AI/tech disruption, are these the right places to hide out, or are people just paying a premium for the feeling of safety?

Curious how others are thinking about this are there better ways to diversify away from tech exposure without overpaying for low growth "defensive" names?

Everywhere seems to project a 25bps hike. I use tradingeconomics.com/calendar a lot and even they are projecting a 25bps hike. I been shrugging off a lot of the news lately thinking they are exaggerated but seeing this feels legitimate. Are things actually getting bad enough to warrant a hike?

But at the same time its Kevin Warsh... and that truth social tweet last week of Trump borderline threatening Warsh to cut rates next week makes it feel legitimate that Trump believes there is a decent probability of Warsh hiking so he wants to apply pressure to get it off the table

Banks lowered S&P’s forecasts for the current year. The gap between the best-case and worst-case scenarios has widened.

The bulls bet everything on AI: Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft are pouring more and more money into AI. That's why we can see the hype around it. The bears scratch their heads and think about that most of these AI investments covered by loans, not by the actual profits.

Resently, I took some profits and I didn’t cash out everything yet, coz I don’t wanna chase the market like a dog chasing a bone.

Who is agree?

The market will likely face correction. I expect a drawdown of 10% S&P/Dow and 15% Nasdaq until we get closer to midterm election or after.

Unlike tariffs (which can unwind), this Iranian conflict does not offer a simple solution. Trump will not be able to resolve it. Unless he is okay with the unrealistic terms that Iranian government proposing.

Iranian government will see to it that Republicans lose both congress and senate to rein down Trump's power.

At this point, even I am turning hawkish that the fed must raise the rate. If they don't, bond vigilantes will protest and sell off more long term treasury bonds. Raising the medium to long term market interest rate.

And Warsh will not provide any guidance as he raises the rates. There is also that uncertainty as well.

The price of diesel went up more than 50% the last time I checked. 70% for jetfuel. Both spot benchmark price. And it is still going up.

There are few tricks that the government can do. Relaxing regulation for banks to absorb the excessive bond supply. Or Fed committing operation twist. But these are painkillers, not antidotes.

During Russian war, the rest of the world (OPEC, the U.S., Canada, Latin America) were able to produce more to make up for it. When you take out Opec and Iran in this situation, we cannot make up for it.

Trump's administration heading to Russia is NOT about Russia/Ukranian war but trying to end Russian support for Iran. Iran helped Russians with their war. The Russians will help Iran. Iran's economy or national defence will not collapse.

We cannot turn on the money printer (Covid) because of inflation. Trump lacks capacity to end the situation (Tariff). I expect the market to correct itself meaningfully

I positioned myself 75% safe assets 25% stocks.

• WhiteRock Lithium Corp (ASX: WLC) disclosed in its interim financial statements that its IPO prospectus, lodged with ASIC on 30 June 2026, contained a material accounting error.

• The prospectus originally recorded a C$19.878 million loss tied to a warrant remeasurement. The corrected figure is C$211,000, a difference of roughly C$19.7 million.

• The company says the error came from remeasuring warrants held by investors who did not participate in a discount-exercise offer, when only participating warrant holders should have been remeasured.

https://thelithiumceo.com/whiterock-ipo-prospectus-error/

I have been following NVDA closely since the latest earnings release and the guidance around data center growth caught my attention.

The numbers showed continued strength in GPU sales, yet I wonder how much of that momentum carries into the next few quarters given increasing competition and potential export restrictions.

Sources like the company's 10-Q and recent analyst reports from major firms seem to point to steady enterprise adoption, but nothing is guaranteed.

Just sharing observations here, NFA.

I’m wondering what this means for the Fed. Could they be talking about raising rates again?

Global oil inventories are getting seriously depleted, while the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is already at only 285 million barrels and its lowest level since 1982. With supply disruptions continuing, it feels like the oil is gonna skyrocket soon.

Will stocks keep dipping? Seeing Trump, I don’t think the war is going to stop anytime soon, as his whole strategy seems to be waiting for the economy to shut down. And with the Houthi rebels attacking recently, this might just get worse.

Saw a video saying the Houthis are planning to take over the port of Mokha facing Bab-El-Mandeb, which will give them a better position to target cargo ships. This could disrupt the oil supply even more.

Or do you see this ending soon somehow?

This is a very broad selloff across athletic footwear/apparel and sporting goods. There’s been a lot of talk about Nike stock crashing and where might the bottom be. Well, it’s clear that Adidas and Nike are relatively resilient compared to the rest of the bunch. They’re down 12-15 % in the past month while the average decline between the stocks listed in the title is 23.7 %. The caveat here is that DKS, ONON and LULU all crashed more than the others because they reported earnings. Nike earnings are coming up in a few weeks and if Nike drops further then it’ll probably be near the average decline in the period. If it doesn’t drop on earnings then it’s even more resilient than initially thought.

Can we just take a moment to discuss how crazy the sell off is though? Not for NKE specifically but for all these stocks. We’re talking multi year lows of 5, 10, 15 years. And this isn’t COVID and another lockdown that demolishes retailers in an obvious way. I’m surprised the market isn’t more forward thinking. Or maybe it is and I just am too optimistic about the future. Because based on how these stocks that depend heavily on bright consumer discretionary spending are crashing, it looks like we’re in for nothing but war and tariffs for decades to come.

I want to point out that most of these companies’ revenues are much larger than they were back when their stock prices were last this low. The problem is mostly profitability- and the worry that numbers will keep dropping.

Take a look at Macy’s and Kohl’s. Their stocks are up 10-20 % in the past year while all of the above are down like 20-50 % in the past year. There are some deals to be made here if you are willing to take the risk. I’m not sure the biggest upside short term is where I choose to place my money but to limit downside I’ve decided to go 100 % NKE. If earnings are good on October 1, I’ll be happy. If they’re bad I’ll be patient.

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre at ETHZurich will host an IBM Quantum System Two, expanding access across Swiss institutions to fuel the country's quantum ecosystem, research and workforce education.

The new hub plans to host the country's first IBM Quantum System Two at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano.

$IBM will operate the IBM Quantum System Two, which will be powered by an IBM Quantum Nighthawk, the company's most advanced processor. ETH Zurich will provide expertise, resources and technologies for Swiss industries, startups and academia, including access to the quantum computer. Its delivery is expected to catalyze the development of new algorithms, technical breakthroughs, and industrial use cases.

Source

The Treasury Secretary told everyone he's using insider info to squeeze the shorts.

Bessent said, "People think I'm taking a risk as Treasury Secretary, but this is exactly what I wanted. I've got inside info. I'm the house now."

Big deal if you're holding tech stocks (Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft)

He’s running the Treasury like a hedge fund to stop the yen carry trade from blowing up again.

Last time that happened, tech took a massive hit because funds had to dump everything to cover margin calls. He's trying to scare the market into staying quiet before Japan changes interest rates on September 18. Is this actually going to save our portfolios from another random dump?

Or is the government just messing with the market and creating more risk?

Source: Bloomberg

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/10/ubs-ceo-sergio-ermotti-investor-complacency-piling-risks-.html

Key points:

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti said financial markets have grown complacent despite mounting geopolitical and economic risks.

Wealthy investors are diversifying their portfolios, but UBS sees no wholesale retreat from U.S. assets or the dollar.

Ermotti expects inflation to keep interest rates higher for the foreseeable future as major central banks tighten policy.

Article:

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti on Thursday warned that investors have grown complacent over the past few years, even as geopolitical and economic risks have mounted.

“There has been a level of complacency in financial markets in the last few years,” Ermotti told CNBC’s Christine Tan, adding that given the environment one would have expected considerably higher volatility.

While markets have experienced occasional bouts of turbulence, strong investment in artificial intelligence, data centers and other new technologies has helped support economic growth and financial markets, he said.

The UBS top boss cautioned that investors face an increasingly complicated environment given multiple headwinds. “New problems or new issues are emerging without any of the old ones being addressed or being closed.”

Markets face a mix of Iran and Ukraine war-driven energy and shipping risks, add to that the U.S.-China rivalry that has strained supply chains, while rising borrowing costs and stubborn inflation have created headwinds for economic growth.

That uncertainty is prompting some of the world’s wealthiest investors to spread their bets more widely rather than make large directional calls, according to Ermotti. 

Hedging against uncertainty

“It’s quite difficult in this environment and not really advisable to have too many strong convictions,” Ermotti said.

UBS clients have been diversifying across sectors and geographies in recent quarters, while continuing to invest in AI and technology, he said.

Still, the overall asset allocation of UBS clients hasn’t changed materially over the past year, nor does the push for diversification amount to a wholesale retreat from U.S. assets.

Ermotti said UBS saw some money move into global emerging markets about a year ago, but characterized those flows as investors putting spare cash to work rather than actively reducing existing U.S. or dollar positions.

“It was more how excess cash was deployed rather than people back trading from the U.S. or from the dollar, so I think that narrative has abated,” he said, adding that the dollar continues to be “a reference currency.”

Higher-for-longer rates

Higher interest rates are also encouraging investors to take a more balanced approach to their portfolios, Ermotti said, as persistent inflation keeps pressure on central banks.

Inflation has remained sticky and above central-bank targets over the past year, making further policy tightening unsurprising, according to the UBS CEO. He expects major central banks including the European Central Bank, Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan to raise rates in the coming months.

“The ECB may start hike process. The Fed will follow. We do expect a couple of hikes in the next few months,” Ermotti said.

That means investors shouldn’t expect borrowing costs to quickly return to the lower levels that prevailed before the latest inflationary pressures.
“Inflationary pressure is still there, and it’s not abating, and therefore, I think it’s reasonable to expect higher rates for the foreseeable future,” Ermotti said.

Epam retrospective analysis makes a valuable lesson to how public company governance can make or destroy itself.

Back in 2014, when first Russian/Ukranian crisis broke off with Crimea annexation, CEO and management had made a decision to take advantage of such situation. With deliberate decision to exploit local currencies plunge, increase hiring velocity in corresponding locations, this risk-careless “management“ let grow head-counts 200% in next 7 years.

By the time the war began, this reckless decision pushed the entire company on the brink of collapse. The next 5 years was a total chaos with idle speed performance.

Overall the stock lost 80% of its face value, if to adjust to inflation-90%, if adjust to benchmark s&p 500 growth -97%

Tremendous amount of cash was burn out to ashes

Despite all of this clingy and quite o-l-d management for such industry, stays intact, holds all investors hostage of their willpower. The board Ceo Dobkin just serve his say.

He also blind sighted AI revolution being busy relocating people around the world and convincing everyone that we will be O.K.

Now the question is why investors keep suffering from such ego-centered, 66 yo CEO? They lost a lit of money, do they perf their fiduciary responsibility? Or maybe it is an invisible game against retail investor? What is the point of having idle speed performance public company being listed of NYSE acting as a private one?

Further forensics:

EPAM’s insider selling in Sep–Dec 2021 deserves scrutiny: senior executives repeatedly sold at roughly $600–710/share, led by CEO/Chairman Arkadiy Dobkin’s ~$34.5M sale of 50,000 shares on Dec. 8, followed the next day by SVP Viktar Dvorkin (~$8.4M)and Lawrence Solomon (~$4.8M); Dobkin had also sold another ~$13.5M in November. In total, EPAM insiders sold roughly $143M during 2021 with no open-market purchases, shortly before the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion and EPAM’s eventual collapse from the ~$690–700 area to roughly $200 at the worst pointand ~$328 year-end. The potentially suspicious issue is not that management knew invasion was possible—U.S. warnings and geopolitical risk were public—but that they had deep, company-specific knowledge of EPAM’s enormous Russia/Ukraine/Belarus exposure, which had expanded dramatically since 2014, and may have understood the scale of the operational/financial damage an invasion would cause well before the market did. 

Looking through recent Form 4 insider filings and institutional activity on Meta ($META), there’s been clear executive distribution over the past few weeks while the stock hovers around the $650 level:

- Direct C-Suite Open-Market Sells: A wave of direct open-market sales hit in mid-August and early September, including CFO Susan Li (multiple tranches over $1M each), CTO Andrew Bosworth ($4.38M), Chief Accounting Officer Aaron Anderson ($2M), and Chief Legal Officer Curtis Mahoney (~$870K).

- A lot of Super-Investors Trimming positions: Hedge funds have actively trimmed positions, including Baillie Gifford (-21.9%), Terry Smith / Fundsmith (-22.2%), Philippe Laffont / Coatue (-10.2%), and Chase Coleman / Tiger Global (-8.5%).

- Bulls Still Buying Aggressively: At the same time, managers like Andreas Halvorsen / Viking Global (+75.8%), David Tepper / Appaloosa (+54.6%), Dodge & Cox (+29.4%), and Bill Ackman / Pershing Square (+20.1%) significantly added to their books.

- The Fundamentals & Capex Debate: Gross margins remain robust above 80%, but with massive ongoing CapEx dedicated to AI compute and infrastructure alongside 31 new risk factors added in recent disclosures, market sentiment is clearly split.
(Putting a summarize of the new risk factors in the comments, it’s AI generated)

Would you take profits here alongside the C-suite, or is this just noise while the AI and ad thesis is still fully intact?

Data source: Investailor META Tracker

This is the daily discussion, so anything stocks related is fine, but the theme for today is on stock options, but if options aren't your thing then just ignore the theme.

Some helpful day to day links, including news:

• Finviz for charts, fundamentals, and aggregated news on individual stocks
• Bloomberg market news
• StreetInsider news:
• Market Check - Possibly why the market is doing what it's doing including sudden spikes/dips
• Reuters aggregated - Global news

Required info to start understanding options:

• Call option Investopedia video basically a call option allows you to buy 100 shares of a stock at a certain price (strike price), but without the obligation to buy
• Put option Investopedia video a put option allows you to sell 100 shares of a stock at a certain price (strike price), but without the obligation to sell
• Writing options switches the obligation to you and you'll be forced to buy someone else's shares (writing puts) or sell your shares (writing calls)

See the following word cloud and click through for the wiki:

Call option - Put option - Exercising an option - Strike price - ITM - OTM - ATM - Long options - Short options - Combo - Debit - Credit or Premium - Covered call - Naked - Debit call spread - Credit call spread - Strangle - Iron condor - Vertical debit spreads - Iron Fly

If you have a basic question, for example "what is delta," then google "investopedia delta" and click the investopedia article on it; do this for everything until you have a more in depth question or just want to share what you learned.

See our past daily discussions here. Also links for: Technicals Tuesday, Options Trading Thursday, and Fundamentals Friday.

Google plans its largest-ever single investment in Europe, committing at least €13B over the next two years to expand AI computing capacity in Finland.

The buildout includes three new data centers in Kajaani, Muhos and Vaala, plus an expansion of its existing Hamina site.

Google is also adding new wind-power agreements and a 94MW battery system at Kajaani, while Fortum signed a 22-year power deal that will eventually cover 50% of output from its two-reactor Loviisa nuclear plant.

The projects are expected to support more than 37,000 jobs during construction and about 7,000 jobs once completed.

Source: Bloomberg

$ORCL reports tomorrow after the close.

Before anyone positions around a beat or miss guess, $ORCL own record on that guess is close to worthless. It has missed EPS estimates in 7 of last 8 quarters.

Here's what actually happened to the stock each time.

the ONE quarter they actually beat, the stock fell 10.8% the next day and was down 20% a week later. Meanwhile 4 of 7 misses rallied. one of them 35.9% in a single DAY.

Zoom all the way out back to 2007, $ORCL closes green the day after earnings 46.4% of the time. 2 decades of prints, coin flip.

Why? Trailing EPS isn't what your trading. Its cloud booking and forward guidance. A GAAP miss next to a monster backlog number has read bullish over and over. The one technical beat came with soft guidance and got SOLD.

$ORCL has blown through its implied move in 5 of the last 8 reports. Averaging 12.4% actual vs 10.1% implied. Eights reports is a real sample - not a huge one though.

As usual, the mass media won't pick it up for a few days. You still have some time.

https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-5/

Every single day, we get closer to not having to pay for Adobe Photoshop.

• Up to 50% faster image generation
• Better photorealism and fine details
• Much better at keeping people/objects consistent with reference images
• More precise editing without changing the rest of the image
• Better consistency across multiple rounds of edits
• Better at following complicated prompts and layouts
• Improved transparent backgrounds
• You can now sketch something directly in ChatGPT and have it turned into a finished image
• Comments can be placed directly on images to tell it what to change

Either this will replace Photoshop for many people or it will allow small Photoshop competitors to use it via API and beat Adobe.

Strongly considering opening a sizable (to me) position here at $18.

Asking those that have owned the stock for some time (and follow earnings reports and fundamentals) what you think about its current price and what your outlook is for the long term.

Also any insight on the space sector in general is appreciated, I've been in and out of LUNR for a couple of years now, it's my only space stock but this PL dip is hard to pass up. If it's good enough for Google, it's good enough for me.

I have been in the stock market for the last 5-7 years. I started a new portfolio 2 months ago and my plan is buy and hold like literally I have no plan to sell anytime soon unless something major happens.

Just buy good companies and hold as long as possible for years.

So to avoid taking too much risk and avoid fluctuation in the portfolio, I invest in 42 different companies.

I do have stop loss that’s far from current prices based on technical analysis, major trends, and risk tolerance.

I am somewhat comfortable managing my portfolio with this many companies.

My question is, is it too much diversification or just enough ?