Paul Klein

Nike slips despite better-than-expected earnings, China remains weak spot

Nike fell nearly 5% in after-hours trading Thursday as investors punished cautious guidance, despite a quarterly profit that topped expectations.

02 October 2026 at 05:49 pm AEST

France: sovereign risk returns to levels seen during the European debt crisis

The spread, as international market participants call it, has taken an increasingly concerning turn since the beginning of August. The yield gap between French OATs and German Bunds has widened by more than 50 basis points since Aug. 1 to reach around 140 basis points, its highest level since the 2011-2012 European debt crisis.

02 October 2026 at 04:23 pm AEST

Oil, deficits, AI: the cocktail pushing long-term rates higher

The rise in long-term bond yields continues to accelerate worldwide, driven both by renewed inflationary fears and by ever-larger financing needs. In the US, the 10-year Treasury yield hit 5.28% on Tuesday, its highest level since 2007, while the 30-year yield topped 5.6%, returning to levels last seen in 2002.

30 September 2026 at 05:53 pm AEST

US rates: the 5% threshold breaks, what now?

The yield on the 10-year US Treasury jumped Wednesday to its highest level since 2007, at 5.05%, clearly pushing through the 5.00% threshold around which it had stabilized in recent days. The move was driven by a modest rebound in oil after six straight days of declines, but above all by PMIs that came in well above expectations.

24 September 2026 at 05:38 pm AEST

Wall Street: the 10-year yield spike brings the stock market rally to an end

US indexes fell sharply on Wednesday, weighed on by a fresh rise in oil and bond yields, while semiconductors gave back part of their early-week gains. At the close, the S&P 500 lost 0.75% to 7,706.3 points, the Dow Jones slipped 0.68% to 51,512.4 points and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.85% to 30,470.2 points. The decline was broad-based, with more than three decliners for every advancer on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq.

24 September 2026 at 05:17 pm AEST

Diesel: why banning US exports could worsen the crunch

With diesel prices hitting record highs in the United States less than two months before the midterm elections, several politicians are considering a temporary ban on exports to ease the burden on consumers. The move could backfire, however, according to Patrick De Haan, an oil analyst at GasBuddy, because of the unique structure of the US refining market.

23 September 2026 at 05:30 pm AEST

Alibaba sends its stock soaring with an AI chip three times more powerful

Alibaba rose as much as 5% on Tuesday in Hong Kong after unveiling its new artificial intelligence chip at its annual Apsara conference. The Chinese e-commerce giant aims to strengthen its position in semiconductors and cloud computing, as US restrictions on exports of advanced chips accelerate the search for Chinese alternatives to Nvidia.

23 September 2026 at 05:28 pm AEST

Muse pushes Meta to the top of the App Store and reignites Wall Street's enthusiasm

Meta Platforms is getting an especially strong reception for Muse, its new artificial intelligence agent launched on September 8 in the United States. Unlike traditional chatbots, Muse can act directly on a user's behalf, including planning a trip or making purchases after being connected to their apps and personal accounts. Ten days after launch, the app climbed to the top of the US App Store, ahead of ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, with more than 730,000 downloads, according to Sensor Tower.

22 September 2026 at 04:42 pm AEST

Late September remains a trap for Wall Street

Selling pressure on US stocks could intensify further through the end of September, according to Citadel Securities, which says several technical factors continue to tilt clearly toward downside risk despite the pullback already seen in the indexes.

21 September 2026 at 05:23 pm AEST

Meta steps up subscriptions after a promising start

Meta is ramping up its paid-subscription strategy after encouraging early results on Instagram and Facebook. According to Appfigures data cited by TechCrunch, Instagram's global daily revenue averaged $1.2m during the week of September 9, up 475% in one week, while Facebook's climbed 143% to $528,000 a day.

21 September 2026 at 05:21 pm AEST

The SEC Paves the Way for Tokenized Stocks After the Clarity Act Failed

Just two days after the Clarity Act failed in the Senate, the SEC chose to speed up the tokenization of US markets by adopting an "Innovation Exemption". This move will allow certain platforms to trade blockchain-based tokenized representations of US-listed shares, bringing Wall Street a step closer to continuous trading, potentially 24/7.

18 September 2026 at 05:30 pm AEST

Markets price in three more rate hikes after Warsh's press conference

Kevin Warsh used his press conference to further toughen his assessment of inflation, while offering a clearer rationale for the rate increase decided on Wednesday.

17 September 2026 at 04:53 pm AEST

The Fed resumes its rate-hike cycle as inflation is still high

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by 25bp, taking its target range to 3.75%-4%, a move in line with expectations after nearly two years on hold. The decision was unanimous, even though only Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari and Lorie Logan had already called for a similar increase at the last meeting in July.

17 September 2026 at 04:50 pm AEST

Rate hikes to stop rates from rising

With rates continuing to climb, central banks need to act.

16 September 2026 at 04:27 am AEST

AI: fewer data centers, more breathing space for rest of the market?

US stock indexes are under pressure Monday after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing the pace of new AI development to curb risks tied to rapidly expanding model capabilities, a call that drew moderate support from Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

15 September 2026 at 05:31 pm AEST

Washington to sanction major bank on Monday over ties to Iran

The Trump administration is preparing to ramp up financial pressure on Iran once again, after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington will sanction a major bank on Monday, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, over its dealings with Tehran. The announcement, initially expected on Friday, was postponed due to the September 11 commemorations.

14 September 2026 at 04:48 pm AEST

Oracle jumps 7% after 121% growth in cloud infrastructure

US enterprise software and cloud infrastructure giant Oracle surged about 7% in after-hours trading yesterday after beating expectations for Q1 2027, driven by a sharp acceleration in its cloud infrastructure business, notably for AI workloads.

11 September 2026 at 05:07 pm AEST

Adobe raises targets, but market remains cautious

Adobe has posted Q3 results that are slightly above expectations, but the stock's response was muted, with shares of the US maker of creative and professional software largely flat in after-hours trading, despite another double-digit increase in its key metrics.

11 September 2026 at 05:02 pm AEST

United States: the dollar could be the first casualty of bond-yield manipulation

The question is worth asking as the US Treasury has already increased, for the second month in a row, the size of its Treasury buyback program, even though that increase does not yet amount to an explicit yield-cap policy. Federal debt now exceeds $40 trillion, debt service is already one of the biggest items in the US budget, and no real return to fiscal orthodoxy appears on the cards, quite the contrary.

11 September 2026 at 05:01 pm AEST

OpenAI Takes Aim at Wall Street Junior Analysts

OpenAI is stepping up its push into finance with the launch of ChatGPT for Financial Services, an optimized version for banks, investment firms and research teams. Developed with Morgan Stanley and Evercore, the service combines its latest AI model with financial data from sources including LSEG, PitchBook, Daloopa, Crunchbase and Quartr.

11 September 2026 at 04:57 pm AEST

Copper keeps setting records amid supply tensions

The 3-month London Metal Exchange contract hit a new all-time high this week at $14,728 a ton, while US futures also set a high of $6.89 a pound on Wednesday.

10 September 2026 at 05:27 am AEST