MARKET AT 7
Good evening. Big week, quiet start: Nvidia reports Wednesday and the Fed's new chair gives his first Jackson Hole speech Friday. Tonight, oil and gold moved on the same currency story from opposite directions. Here's what moved markets today:
In tonight's newsletter:
Oil falls to a one-week low as traders shrug off new Iran sanctions
Bitcoin tops $80,000, gold hits $4,696 as the US dollar softens
ASX 200 has its best day in three weeks; Coles profit jumps despite underpayment bill
Wall Street braces for Nvidia's Wednesday earnings after chip stocks slide
Fed chair Warsh gives his first Jackson Hole speech Friday
Oil falls to a one-week low as traders shrug off new Iran sanctions
Brent crude fell 0.38% to $91.82 a barrel on Tuesday, its lowest since 19 August, while WTI slid to $84.60, CNBC reported.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled "Operation Economic Outcast" on Monday, targeting brokers, companies and shadow-fleet vessels moving Iranian oil through the UAE, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Switzerland. He wouldn't say which countries face the next round, or when. Source: CNBC, 25 Aug 2026 → · Source: NPR, 24 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Markets are calling Washington's bluff. Traders are betting economic pressure poses less risk to actual supply than the military escalation everyone feared last week, and for now the price agrees.
Bitcoin tops $80,000, gold hits $4,696 as the US dollar softens
Bitcoin climbed above $80,000 on Tuesday, its highest level in more than three months, on a weaker dollar and renewed debasement worries. Gold ran the same play, surging to $4,696 an ounce before the rally cooled, Investing.com data shows.
Both moves build on a run that's been going for weeks now. Gold is still well short of January's record near $5,597, but it's climbing on the same dollar softness that's been lifting bitcoin, rather than the two assets trading on separate stories the way they usually do.Source: Investing.com, 25 Aug 2026 → · Source: Fortune, 20 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Our take: a haven metal and a risk asset spiking on the same dollar weakness is a pattern now, not a coincidence. Traders are hedging against the currency, not against each other.
ASX 200 has its best day in three weeks; Coles profit jumps despite underpayment bill
Australia's benchmark index gained 0.7% to close at 9,164.6, its best session in almost three weeks, led by a 2.2% jump in tech and 1.8% in staples. Energy was the only sector in the red, down 0.5%, tracking the oil slide.
Coles reported a $1.1 billion full-year profit, up nearly 14%, alongside a higher dividend for shareholders.
The profit came with a $235 million provision to cover remediation from last year's Federal Court judgment over historical staff underpayments, plus a separate finding on misleading ticketing conduct.
Coles cut short-term incentives by a combined $1.66 million across the executives held accountable for both failures. Source: The Motley Fool Australia, 25 Aug 2026 → · Source: ABC News, 25 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Growing profit nearly 14% in the same year you're writing a quarter-billion-dollar cheque for underpaying staff says the underlying business was strong enough to absorb it. That's not a defence. It's just what the numbers show.
Wall Street braces for Nvidia's Wednesday earnings after chip stocks slide
Nvidia reports second-quarter results Wednesday after the bell, with Wall Street expecting roughly $91 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings of $2.09 a share.
Monday was a warning shot: Micron dropped 5.8%, AMD fell more than 3% and Broadcom lost over 2%, dragging the Nasdaq down 0.76% even as the Dow edged up 0.26% on gains elsewhere in the index.
That split matters. Money didn't leave the market Monday, it left chip stocks specifically, which is exactly the kind of nervous positioning that shows up right before a result the whole sector is treating as a verdict on AI spending, not just one company's quarter. Source: Yahoo Finance, 24 Aug 2026 → · Source: Intellectia, 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Nvidia's become the whole AI trade's stand-in. Monday's sell-off in the smaller chip names suggests some of that anxiety is already priced in before the actual number lands.
Fed chair Warsh gives his first Jackson Hole speech Friday
The Fed's Jackson Hole symposium runs 27-29 August, and new chair Kevin Warsh gives his first keynote as chair Friday morning, three weeks ahead of the September rate decision.
This year's theme is "Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy," putting stablecoins on the agenda alongside the usual rate-path signals investors dig for in every Fed speech.
Warsh has told reporters he'll focus on long-term structural questions, not near-term guidance, a deliberate break from how his predecessors used the podium.
Bessent, meanwhile, has publicly pushed for a deep rate cut in September, so the gap between what Treasury wants and what the Fed chair is willing to promise is one of the bigger open questions heading into the meeting. Source: Bloomberg, 22 Aug 2026 → · Source: TradingEconomics, 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Refusing to give near-term guidance is itself a signal. Previous chairs all but pre-announced their next move. A chair who won't is choosing to keep markets guessing, and that's a real change in how this Fed operates.
QUICK HITS
NZX 50 gains as a2 Milk and SkyCity rally. New Zealand's benchmark rose 0.6%, with a2 Milk up 4% and SkyCity climbing another 4%, extending its one-month gain to 18%. Our take: SkyCity's run has outpaced the index for weeks. Worth checking what's driving it before assuming it's just a rising tide. Source: interest.co.nz, 25 Aug 2026 →
US consumer confidence data lands Tuesday amid a soft housing market. The Conference Board's index was due out at 10am ET, after July fell to 90.8 from an upward revised 92.2 in June. Builder confidence inched up one point to 35 in August. Our take: nothing here says recession. Nothing says relief either. Source: Washington Post, 22 Aug 2026 → · Source: NAHB →
RBNZ's next rate call is 2 September; nothing new since July's hike to 2.5%. New Zealand's central bank lifted its cash rate for the first time since 2023 on 8 July, and analysts expect two more quarter-point moves by year end. Nothing fresh out of Wellington today, so this is background, not a headline. Our take: it's the one central bank still raising while the Fed talks cuts. Worth watching once the kiwi dollar starts reacting to that gap. Source: RNZ, Jul 2026 →
Those are your 5 minutes for tonight; see you at the same time tomorrow. - Miko Santos