‼️ BREAKING: August CPI inflation comes in at 3.4%, in-line with expectations of 3.4% Core CPI inflation falls to 2.4%, also in-line with expectations of 2.4%. Month-over-month CPI inflation rose +0.4%, the biggest increase since May 2026.
🛢️ BREAKING: Diesel prices rose above $6 a gallon for the first time ever, raising the risk of further energy-driven inflation just ahead of peak demand season for the fuel.
‼️ 🇬🇧 FTSE 100 is on track for its worst weekly drop since April. The MSCI All Country World Index is off by 1.5% for the week. The biggest drag has been from heavyweight names like HSBC, Unilever and Rolls-Royce. But for the week, 90 stocks are down, so it’s broad weakness. Unsurprisingly, the only names to have fared well are Shell and BP, boosted by the jump in oil prices.
‼️ 🧠 Micron will award Taiwan engineers a $32,000 cash bonus plus equity, with all Taiwan staff receiving equity in annual merit grants. The company employs about 15,000 people on the island, a key manufacturing hub, and has invested more than T$1.6 trillion in Taiwan.
‼️ 🇺🇸 🇮🇷 BREAKING: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration plans to sanction a major bank on Monday, escalating economic pressure aimed at ending the six-month conflict with Iran. He said the timing was chosen to honor the memory of those killed on Sept. 11.
‼️ 💴 🇯🇵 Japan’s producer-price inflation remained elevated in August, with input prices rising 7.6% year on year—above the 7.4% consensus estimate—though marginally slower than July’s revised 7.7%, the strongest pace since February 2023. Prices fell 0.2% month on month after a revised 0.4% increase in July, but oil and coal products, chemicals, IT and communications equipment, and non-ferrous metals continued to drive annual cost pressures. The data underscore the challenge for Japanese companies as higher energy, freight, packaging and labour costs sustain pressure to raise prices for consumers.
‼️ 🇮🇳 Bets against India’s short-term government bonds are building as traders position for the Reserve Bank of India to drain the banking system’s roughly ₹11 trillion liquidity surplus. Overnight short positions in the five-year benchmark pushed daily borrowing above ₹100 billion ($1 billion) at the start of the month—about double early-August levels—making it the market’s most-shorted bond on several occasions, an unusual development. The move signals growing expectations that sustained RBI liquidity absorption will lift short-end borrowing costs and push yields higher.