👋 ICYMI
This past week, the bill arrived, and the AI trade paid it first. September CPI rose 0.6% for the month and 3.7% from a year ago, against 3.6% expected, with core at 2.6% against 2.5%. Gasoline jumped 9.1% and did about half the work, but shelter, used cars and apparel rose too. Thursday's producer prices were worse: wholesale inflation hit 6.3% year over year, against 5.4% expected and the most since December 2022.
Friday finished the job. The Nasdaq fell 2.1% to 26,140 and the S&P 500 1.1% to 7,659, while the Dow slipped just 0.3% to 52,002. For the week, the S&P 500 lost 1.9%, the Nasdaq 4.5% and the Russell 2000 3%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both had their worst week since June, yet the Dow gained 0.7%. The Russell 1000 Value index beat its growth counterpart by more than 5.5 percentage points. That's a rotation, not a liquidation. Tech still took the hit: tech stocks shed more than $1 trillion of value on Friday alone, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.8% for its eighth straight losing day, its longest streak since 2008.
Bonds did the opposite of what a hot CPI usually triggers. The 10-year fell to around 5.09% by Friday afternoon from about 5.24% a week earlier, as money left tech for Treasuries. Oil went the other way: WTI settled at $101.41, its highest since Sept. 17, and Brent touched $110 for the first time since May. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, speaking in Bangkok on Friday, refused to give a steer: "I don't prejudge meetings… It's a new chapter at the Fed [and] we're not in that business anymore." Banks opened earnings season on Tuesday with JPMorgan's $JPM ( ▲ 1.25% ) first profit miss since late 2023, $5.57 a share against $5.85 expected, while Goldman Sachs $GS ( ▼ 1.12% ) blew past estimates on equities trading.
🔁 Market Movers
🛢 Oil Back Above $100 — Brent Touched $110 as Hormuz Attacks Hit a Record
Brent crossed $110 shortly after 2:30 p.m. ET on Friday and settled at $109.86, its highest close since May 19, while WTI jumped 3.5% to $101.41. WTI settled at $91.85 a week earlier, so U.S. crude gained about 10% in five sessions. The driver is Hormuz. Twelve vessels reported attacks between Oct. 5 and 11, the most in any week since the war began, and Kpler put flows through the strait at 12.6 million barrels a day on Oct. 13, down from about 15 million at the end of September and roughly 17 million before the war. Iran says it is stepping up strikes in response to the U.S. blockade of its ports. On Friday a Saudi-led coalition intercepted a missile aimed at Yanbu, the Red Sea port Saudi Arabia uses to get oil around Hormuz. The bypass route is now a target too.
📈 Exxon Closes at a 52-Week High — Refining Is Doing the Work
Exxon Mobil $XOM ( ▲ 2.46% ) rose 2.5% on Friday after Morgan Stanley $MS ( ▼ 0.84% ) raised its target to $185 and closed at $178.98, a 52-week high, up about 6% on the week. The bigger news was in its 8-K: better product margins should add a net $4.4 billion to third-quarter earnings versus the second quarter, partly offset by a $1.3 billion hit from lower oil and liquids prices in production. Goldman's Neil Mehta said that implies EPS near $4.10, against a FactSet consensus of about $3.87. The stock is up 48% this year and reports on Oct. 30. With diesel tighter than crude, the money is in the refinery as much as the barrel.
💳 CoreWeave: Bonds Near 15%, Stock Down 25% in a Week
CoreWeave $CRWV ( ▼ 11.91% ) fell 15.5% on Wednesday as the yield on its 9.625% notes due 2032 hit 14.8% and its 2031s about 14.9%. S&P rates it B+, which is junk territory. Thursday brought a pause: the stock rose nearly 6% and bond prices rallied somewhat, but 2032 yields still hovered near 15%. On Friday it was one of the two worst Nasdaq-100 stocks, alongside Nebius, and it closed the week at $61.39, down 25% from $82.08. The damage spread: Oracle $ORCL ( ▼ 4.64% ) closed down nearly 9% on Wednesday with its 2032 bond yielding 7.24%, Dell lost about 11% and Nebius $NBIS ( ▼ 12.18% ) 10%. Nvidia's Jensen Huang said on Thursday that CoreWeave's "cost of capital is actually decreasing." The bond market disagrees.
🤖 TSMC Guided Q4 Up 14%. The Stock Still Fell 9%.
TSMC $TSM ( ▼ 2.28% ) reported third-quarter revenue of $46.72 billion, up 41.2% from a year ago and above the top of its $44.6–45.8 billion guidance, with net income up 68.7%. It guided fourth-quarter revenue to $52.3–54.3 billion, up 14% sequentially and 58% year over year at the midpoint, and now sees 2026 revenue growing around 44% in dollars. The CFO pointed to the "steep ramp-up of our 2-nanometer technology." The day before, ASML $ASML ( ▼ 0.96% ) said some customers are "expressing an interest in placing orders with us for 2029 and even 2030," that planned supply for 2027–2028 won't fully meet demand, and that 2026 sales will be €44–45 billion. TSMC's ADR still closed Friday at $412.61, down about 9% from $453.31. Demand isn't the problem. The multiple is being set by rates and credit.
👀 Signals I'm Watching
💰 CoreWeave's Founders Have Sold $3.3 Billion. Read the Fine Print.
Michael Intrator, Brian Venturo and Brannin McBee have sold $3.3 billion of stock since the March 2025 IPO, $2.4 billion of it this year. Intrator has sold more than $907 million since Jan. 1 after less than $70 million last year. McBee's $1.06 billion equals 40.4% of his holding at the IPO. A company spokesperson said the founders still own about 20% together and that every sale was pre-scheduled. That checks out: about 90% of the $2.95 billion sold by officers and directors over the past year went through disclosed trading plans, and none of them bought. Planned sales aren't a timing signal. The lack of a single insider purchase with the bonds near 15% is. A buy on a Form 4 would say more than any memo.
🏛 October Hike Odds Went 17% to 54% and Back in Three Days
Right after CPI, futures put the odds of an October hike at about 54% and a hike by year-end at better than 96%. By Friday afternoon, FedWatch was back to roughly 17%, little changed from the week before. Goldman's read after Warsh's speech: "the FOMC is set to pause in October… We continue to expect a second and final hike in December." The meeting is Oct. 27–28, and September PCE, the Fed's preferred gauge, lands later this month. Here's what I keep coming back to: the 10-year fell 15 basis points in a week of hot inflation data. The bond market is pricing slower growth, not just a higher policy rate.
😟 Retail Sales Rose 0.8%. The Pump Did Most of It.
September retail sales rose 0.8%, but gas station receipts jumped 6.4% and the control group, which feeds GDP, rose just 0.1%, against about 0.3% expected and down from 1.2% in August. Jobless claims were 199,000, the fifth straight reading below 200,000. That's the two-speed economy in one release: the labour market is holding, but with CPI at 3.7%, flat core spending means fewer real goods leaving the shelf outside of fuel. Watch the consumer names guiding into Q4. One PepsiCo $PEP ( ▲ 2.42% ) director just put $23.7 million on the view that the squeeze is priced in (see the insider table).
Our portfolio updates channel on Discord
This past week's selloff has created some of the most compelling entry points I've seen in a while. As you can see above, I've been actively buying the dip in several positions that have fallen too much — and Investment Club members have been following every move in real time.
If you'd like to follow along and be first to know when I'm buying, you can become a member here.
Thank you for your continued support,
George
⚠️ Red Flag to Note
AI's Funding Bill Now Has a Coupon
For most of this year the AI buildout was an equity story. This week it became a credit story. At the end of June, CoreWeave had about $35 billion of debt plus roughly $16 billion of debt-like lease liabilities, and it burned $5.7 billion of free cash flow in its latest quarter. Funding that gap now costs close to 15%. The pattern goes beyond the neoclouds: Alphabet $GOOG ( ▼ 2.32% ), Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 1.87% ), Meta $META ( ▼ 3.72% ) and Oracle have issued more than $228 billion in bonds this year as of Oct. 13, more than double all of 2025, and JPMorgan expects hyperscaler spending of $800 billion this year and over $1 trillion a year by 2027. Bernstein's Madison Rezaei put it plainly: "CoreWeave does not just need customers willing to buy the compute. It needs lenders willing to fund the hardware on terms that leave something attractive for shareholders." This doesn't mean the buildout stops. TSMC and ASML say demand runs to 2030, and three of those four hyperscalers are investment grade. But with the 10-year above 5% and a December hike expected, the weakest borrowers now set the price of AI credit. As Wells Fargo's Luis Alvarado said, the marginal dollar "is going to be more looked at with a microscope."
🔍 Insider Transactions I’m Watching
Ticker | Insider | Action | Value | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Robert C. Pohlad — Director | Buy | ~$23.7M | Pohlad bought 184,646 shares at $128.28 on October 14, per OpenInsider, raising his stake 68% to 455,990 shares. Six days earlier, PepsiCo cut its 2026 core EPS growth forecast to 2.5%–3.5% on weak North American volumes. A director adding that much right after a guidance cut is a bet the reset is already in the price. | |
Tor Olav Trøim — Director | Buy | ~$25.1M (4 buys) | Last week we flagged his $12.6M. This week he filed four more: 2.5M shares at $4.74 (Oct. 9), 1.5M at $4.93 (Oct. 13), 750K at $4.72 (Oct. 14) and 500K at $4.60 (Oct. 15), per OpenInsider, taking his indirect holding to about 40.1M shares. COO Harvey Snowling also filed a 300K-share buy at $4.91. With WTI back above $100 and Hormuz flows falling, insiders are betting on more offshore rigs going back to work. | |
Ryan Cohen — CEO | Buy | ~$22.8M | Cohen bought 844,130 shares at $26.98 on October 13. That's his third open-market buy in about two weeks, after 450K at $23.48 (Sept. 29) and 700K at $24.41 (Oct. 2), roughly $50M in total, and he now holds about 42.5M shares. Each purchase came at a higher price than the last, in a week when risk appetite was falling. |
📬 Closing Note
Oil crossed $100. CPI ran hot. CoreWeave's bonds traded like distressed debt. Next up: September PCE later this month, the Fed on Oct. 27–28, and Exxon's results on Oct. 30. Goldman expects a pause in October and a final hike in December. If the 10-year keeps falling while oil keeps rising, the market is telling the Fed that growth, not inflation, is the bigger risk.
If you missed Wednesday's deep dive, After An 85%+ Rally, The Market Is Still Underestimating Navan $NAVN ( ▲ 0.71% ) covers why new signed GBV matters more than last quarter's revenue.
Stay patient. Stay selective. And let the data guide the story.
Until next Sunday —
