Brent settled at $101.21 as the Dow fell for a third straight session and the 10-year reached 4.857%. Trump said the Iran war would end after the midterms. Strive bought 1,375 bitcoin while Strategy bought none for a second week. August PPI rose 0.4% month over month and 5.4% year over year, while core came in softer at 0.2%. CPI now becomes the final major inflation test before the Fed.
The market enters Thursday with oil above $100 and inflation back in control.
Brent rose 3.4% Wednesday to $101.21, while WTI gained 3.3% to $96.05. Both posted their highest closes since May.
President Trump told a Republican convention in Dallas that the Iran war would end “immediately after the election.” That puts his own timeline for relief beyond the midterms, not around the next ceasefire attempt.
Stocks reacted to the harder backdrop. The Dow fell 405 points, or 0.77%, to 52,380.66, its third straight decline. The S&P 500 lost 0.48% to 7,636.36, while the Nasdaq fell 0.64% to 26,253.34.
The 10-year yield reached 4.857% even after Treasury announced up to $6 billion of long-bond buybacks. Futures are near flat this morning.
August PPI rose 0.4% month over month, matching expectations. The annual rate came in at 5.4%, slightly above forecasts and still well above the Fed’s 2% target. Core PPI was softer at 0.2%, below the 0.3% expected. The ECB follows today, while Oracle (ORCL) and Adobe (ADBE) report tonight.
The Signal
PPI did not deliver a clean inflation surprise. Headline prices stayed hot, while core softened. Friday’s CPI now
Oil is pricing a longer war.
Fresh U.S. strikes in the Persian Gulf followed another round of attacks on shipping. Trump’s comments then pushed the political timeline for an end to the conflict beyond the midterms.
That matters because the physical problem has not changed.
OPEC+ has raised output quotas twice this year, but extra barrels only help if they can reach buyers. Hormuz remains the key constraint.
Brent at $101.21 and WTI at $96.05 show that traders are paying for the risk that shipping stays impaired.
Trump also suggested gasoline could fall sharply once the conflict ends. For markets, the timing matters more than the target.
If the war lasts through the election, high energy costs can keep feeding transport, goods and inflation for weeks.
Energy Signal
A promise of cheaper oil later does not lower prices today. Brent above $100 is pricing the timeline, not the promised ending.
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So the story's over, right?
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The paper market sets the price. The physical market sets the deadline.
Anyone who wished they'd bought miners before January's run just got handed the entry back.
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That gap is the whole opportunity.
Producer prices gave the Fed a mixed first inflation read.
August PPI rose 0.4% from July, matching expectations, while the annual rate reached 5.4%, slightly above forecasts and still far above the Fed’s 2% target. Core PPI rose just 0.2%, below the 0.3% expected. Excluding food, energy and trade services, prices rose 0.3%.
CPI follows Friday. Consensus calls for a 0.4% monthly increase and 3.4% annual inflation.
September hike odds sit near 59%, up from about 50% a week ago.
The bond market is already showing the pressure. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced up to $6 billion of buybacks in 10- to 20-year debt, triple the usual size. The 10-year yield rose anyway to 4.857%.
The ECB added to the tightening backdrop Thursday, raising its key deposit rate by 25 basis points to 2.5% from 2.25%, in line with expectations.
Macro Signal
Headline inflation stayed firm, but core eased. PPI kept the hike case alive without settling it. CPI now decides whether September tightening becomes the base case.
AI gets two different earnings tests tonight.
Oracle tests infrastructure demand. Its backlog includes a five-year, $300 billion cloud agreement with OpenAI, making the deal both proof of AI demand and a major customer concentration risk.
Adobe tests the software side. Wall Street expects earnings near $6.07 per share, with investors watching whether AI features are adding revenue or putting pressure on the products they are meant to improve.
Apple (AAPL) adds a third angle.
The company unveiled its first foldable iPhone alongside new Watch models Wednesday. Shares were little changed, leaving investors focused on whether new hardware and Apple Intelligence can restart growth.
Capital Signal
Oracle tests the money going into AI infrastructure. Adobe tests whether software can turn AI into revenue. Both now face a higher rate hurdle.
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ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek could soon become obsolete.
And three little-known firms could soar 10X or higher as a result.
Bitcoin treasury companies are starting to split by access to capital.
Strive (ASST) bought 1,375 BTC between August 31 and September 4 for about $109 million. Its average price was $79,281, lifting total holdings to 24,531 BTC.
That is a 225% increase this year.
Strategy (MSTR) went the other way. It bought no Bitcoin for a second straight week and remains at 845,050 BTC.
Instead, Strategy spent $176 million buying back STRC preferred shares and doubled that program to $2 billion.
The difference is funding.
Strive’s SATA preferred trades near par, giving it room to raise capital and buy Bitcoin. Strategy is using cash to support its own preferred instead.
BTC trades near $78,100 after failing to hold $80,000 three times this week. Spot ETFs recorded a $46.6 million outflow Tuesday, but August still brought $3.52 billion of inflows, followed by roughly $770 million in September.
The Verdict
Strive is using strong access to capital to buy Bitcoin. Strategy is using capital to defend its own securities. The asset is the same. The funding conditions are not.
Thursday starts with one price connecting almost everything else.
Brent closed above $101.
If that level holds, inflation gets harder to cool. That keeps pressure on yields and raises the hurdle for the AI valuations Oracle and Adobe have to defend tonight.
The bond market is already resisting relief. Treasury tripled its long-bond buyback size, and the 10-year still reached 4.857%.
Bitcoin shows the same capital divide. Strive is buying because its funding works. Strategy has stopped because supporting its own securities comes first.
PPI gave the Fed a split signal. Headline prices rose 0.4% and 5.4% year over year, while core came in softer at 0.2%. CPI now gets the deciding vote Friday.
The Fed can look through one oil spike.
A longer war makes that much harder.
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The world's wealthiest individuals are making huge moves with their money.
Warren Buffett just liquidated billions of shares. Bill Gates sold 500,000 shares of Microsoft. Jeff Bezos filed to sell Amazon shares worth $4.8 billion.
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