MARKET AT 7
Good evening. Wall Street held its breath Wednesday: Nvidia reports after the bell and the Fed's favourite inflation number lands within hours, so nobody wanted to move first.
Elsewhere, a Treasury bond move kept lighting up crypto, Intuit got punished for cautious guidance, and Australia's benchmark fell despite two of its biggest names posting strong results. Here's what moved markets today:
In tonight's newsletter:
Wall Street holds flat as Nvidia earnings and inflation data loom
Bitcoin nears $81,000 as a Treasury bond buyback fuels a short squeeze
Oil extends its slide as Iran and the US signal diplomatic progress
ASX 200 falls despite Woolworths' 18% profit jump; BHP gains
Intuit shares slide 10% on weak fiscal 2027 guidance
Wall Street holds flat as Nvidia earnings and inflation data loom
The S&P 500 closed Tuesday up 0.32% to 7,677, and the Nasdaq climbed 0.66% to 26,151, Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance data show. Futures were close to flat on Wednesday.
Two things are pinning the market in place: Nvidia's second-quarter results after the close, with Wall Street expecting roughly $92 billion in revenue, and July's core PCE inflation reading, forecast to hold at 3.3%, due out this evening Adelaide time. Source: Bloomberg, 26 Aug 2026 → · Source: Yahoo Finance, 25 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
A market this quiet isn't calm. It's two numbers away from moving hard, and everyone knows it.
Bitcoin nears $81,000 as a Treasury bond buyback fuels a short squeeze
Bitcoin traded near $80,894 this week, Fortune and CryptoNews report, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled the size of the government's long-dated bond buyback programme on 19 August.
That broke a crowded bet that bitcoin would stay stuck below $67,000: more than $3 billion in crypto derivatives positions were force-liquidated over 45 hours, roughly 92% of them from short sellers. Gold rode the same wave, trading near $4,700 an ounce. Source: Fortune, 23 Aug 2026 → · Source: CryptoNews, 25 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
This wasn't sentiment shifting. It was a specific bond-market decision that broke a specific bet, and the price move followed the mechanics, not the mood.
Oil extends its slide as Iran and the US signal diplomatic progress
WTI crude fell 1.92% to $80.78 a barrel Wednesday, Trading Economics data shows, extending a third straight daily decline.
Brent lost 3% to around $89.50 on Tuesday, on top of a 2.4% drop the day before, as signs of a possible diplomatic opening between Washington and Tehran eased fears of supply disruption.
That's a shift from Monday's mood, when Treasury's newly unveiled Iran sanctions package had traders bracing for confrontation. Iran's security chief is still threatening to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, so the risk remains, though it has cooled somewhat. Source: Trading Economics, 26 Aug 2026 → · Source: Trading Economics, 25 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Oil traders are pricing talks over threats this week. That can flip back to threats over talks just as fast if the diplomacy stalls.
ASX 200 falls despite Woolworths' 18% profit jump; BHP gains
Australia's benchmark shed 36.8 points, or 0.4%, to close at 9,127.8 on Wednesday, ABC News reports, even as Woolworths and BHP both had strong sessions.
Woolworths' headline profit rose 18.1% to $1,138 million, with a final dividend of 52 cents, up 15.6%, and revenue up 3.6% to $71.5 billion. BHP climbed 1.4%. Both were outweighed by weakness elsewhere in the index, including a widely reported credit-fund redemption story. Source: ABC News, 26 Aug 2026 → · Source: Kalkine, 26 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Two of the market's biggest names beating expectations and the index still falling says the problem sits outside those two boardrooms.
Intuit shares slide 10% on weak fiscal 2027 guidance
Intuit beat fourth-quarter estimates, with adjusted earnings of $4.03 a share against a $3.59 estimate.
Then it guided first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings to just $2.44-$2.48 a share, well below the $4.02 consensus, and full-year revenue growth to 9-10%, down from 14% in fiscal 2026. Shares fell 7.3% after hours on Tuesday and were down about 10% by Wednesday. Source: GuruFocus, 26 Aug 2026 → · Source: Seeking Alpha, 25 Aug 2026 →
OUR TAKE:
Beating the quarter didn't matter once management told investors to expect a slower year ahead. Guidance is doing the talking here, not the results.
QUICK HITS
NZX 50 closes above 14,000 for the first time. New Zealand's benchmark gained 0.2% to a record 14,013, led by a 2.8% surge in materials after Vulcan Steel reported a 20% jump in earnings per share. Our take: a genuine record, not just a round number — the material's strength behind it is real and specific. Source: NBR, 26 Aug 2026 →
Dick's Sporting Goods stock craters 30% on a guidance cut. Adjusted earnings of $3.53 a share missed the $3.78 expected, and full-year EPS guidance dropped to $11-$12 from $13.50-$14.50 on weak athletic footwear demand through its Foot Locker business. Our take: comparable sales still grew almost 5%. This is a footwear problem, not a Dick's problem. Source: CNBC, 25 Aug 2026 →
Pacific leaders head to Palau for the region's biggest economic meeting. The 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting runs from 30 August to 4 September under the theme "Building Economies", with PNG's James Marape expected to press Australia for more investment as Pacific nations shift their focus from aid to self-sufficiency. Our take: worth watching what actually gets committed, not just who shows up. Source: PINA, Jul 2025 → · Source: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2026 →
Those are your 5 minutes for tonight; see you at the same time tomorrow. - Miko Santos