September 14th Pre-Market Brief

Good Morning

Chips are down because three AI executives wrote essays this weekend saying the industry should slow down. That's it. No customer canceled an order. No company cut guidance.

If AI spending were really about to slow, Microsoft and Amazon and Alphabet would be getting wrecked, because they're the ones writing the checks.They are up. Only the companies that receive the money are down for the most part.

Oil is near 110 and the Fed decides Wednesday. Those two matter more this week than the essays.

Let's dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. The Companies That Would Actually Cut Spending Didn't Move

Microsoft is flat. Alphabet is slightly higher. Amazon is down less than 1 percent. Those are the companies that would write the smaller checks if AI spending slowed, and the companies that would receive those checks got hit instead: ASML off 6.5 percent, CoreWeave near 8, Marvell 7, Super Micro 5.

2. Brent Was At 104 On Friday And It's Near 110 Now

Saudi Arabia shut the East-West pipeline Friday after Iraqi drones hit a pumping station. That line moves up to 7 million barrels a day and is how Saudi crude leaves the region without using Hormuz. Brent is up 4.7 percent to 109.56 and WTI 4.7 percent to 104.72, on top of a 9 percent gain last week. Rystad says the market is assuming Saudi inventories cover exports for five to seven days, which puts the test Wednesday or Thursday, and Riyadh still has not said how long the repair takes.

3. Wages Stopped Keeping Up With Prices Five Months Ago

Consumer prices rose 3.4 percent in August from a year earlier. Wages rose 3.1 percent, the slowest since May 2021. That gap opened in April and has not closed, and Navy Federal's Heather Long says shoppers are trading down at every income level, with Whole Foods customers moving to Costco and Aldi. The Fed raises rates into that on Wednesday.

Market Overview

Today’s Sponsor

The Popcorn Brand Turning Heads and Raising Capital

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Explore the Popsmith investment opportunity.

Stock Spotlight (pre-market)

Marvell $MRVL ( ▼ 8.96% )  
Down, the worst chip name on the board. Marvell builds custom chips for a handful of big customers, so a slowdown at those customers hits it harder than Nvidia, down 3.

CrowdStrike $CRWD ( ▼ 1.02% )  
Up , with Palo Alto up 5. Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow and Adobe all higher too, all names sold this year on the bet AI would replace them.

CoreWeave $CRWV ( ▼ 0.15% )  
Down, the worst of the data center names. Bernstein says a quarter of its active power and three quarters of its contracted power sit in secondary markets that are harder to re-lease.

ASML $ASML ( ▲ 0.64% )  
Down in Amsterdam. Taiwan Semi is down 1.2, and that gap is the trade: running chips is fine, building the machines to make more is what got sold.

Oracle $ORCL ( ▼ 1.74% )  
Down with the rest of tech. Ellison disclosed plans to sell up to 7.5 billion of stock this weekend, then canceled a day later with no explanation.

Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 0.52% )  
Down . Morgan Stanley values the robotics and self-driving business near 320 a share against 45 for cars, so this trades on the AI headline now.

Marathon Petroleum $MPC ( ▲ 0.89% )  
Up , with Diamondback, APA and EOG matching. Refiners make money on the gap between crude and fuel, and diesel hit a record 6.06 a gallon Friday.

Affirm $AFRM ( ▲ 5.07% )  
Up on a Wolfe Research upgrade. The only name moving this morning that has nothing to do with AI or oil.

What to Watch

Want to Know about this years upcoming IPO’s?
MarketBeat did an excellent job on this free IPO guide on IPO’s happening this year

Wednesday's Real Question
The hike is at 88 percent on CME's FedWatch, so the decision is not the event. The projections at 2pm are. Clarida at Pimco said it plainly: a hike this week means more follow. Warsh has spent three months refusing to signal the next move, so the projections may be the only guidance anyone gets, and a 10-year at 4.97 is already leaning on them.

When The Oil Calm Ends
Petroline went down Friday, so the five to seven day inventory cushion runs out Wednesday or Thursday. If there is no restart by then, the 3 percent move stops being 3 percent. The Oman meeting that would have opened an Iran-Oman route through Hormuz was postponed Sunday with no new date, so nothing on the calendar offsets it, and the deadline lands on the same two days as the Fed and the BoJ.

Today’s Sponsor

How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more