September 25, 2026

Global stock markets remained near all-time highs this past week despite higher oil prices and surging interest rates. The exploding popularity of Meta’s personal AI agent Muse, and the promise it could bring AI to the masses through Meta’s billions of monthly and daily active users propelled AI sentiment. Meta’s narrative largely overshadowed continued signs of cracks in the financing cogs for key data center projects and rising corporate AI bond spreads. Breadth narrowed, with a small subset of technology names driving the overall performance of the topline indices. For the week, the S&P added 1.2%, the DJIA rose 0.3%, and the Nasdaq gained 2.1%. European bourses experienced modest gains with the German DAX advancing 0.4% and the French CAC40 edging 0.2% higher for the week. Asia Pacific stock markets were bifurcated; the Japanese Nikkei gained 2.1% while the Hong Kong Hang Seng retreated 1%. Your BSD Global Tech Hedge Fund gained 2.7% this past week. U.S. Treasury yields broke out to new cycle highs climbing above 5% in the benchmark 10-year yield. Investors seemed to take the higher rates in stride, perhaps because the driver appeared to be signs of a robust U.S. economy rather than dislocation in the bond markets. S&P PMI’s revealed the strongest growth surveyed in 5-years accompanied by stubbornly high inflation levels tracking back to 2022. August preliminary durable goods data topped expectations, in particular, the closely watched proxy for business spending capital goods orders surged. Fed commentary was decidedly hawkish, setting expectations that policy markers very well could hike again in October and perhaps two more times into 2027. Oil prices remained tightly correlated to interest rates climbing this week amid another barrage of headlines regarding the Mid-East and potential measures Western governments could take to offset rising energy costs. Iran and U.S. officials met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York but no new breakthrough appeared imminent despite discussions on reopening the Strait. Chinese President Xi arrived in Washington for the second summit this year with President Trump. The two sides agreed to extend the previously instituted trade truce by two months to January 10th, with U.S. officials referring to it as a “compliance” period. Agreements were reportedly reached on further subsets of goods for trade, but as usual details were sparse with additional information promised next week. Aside from the news about Meta’s new shopping AI agent, a few other AI-sector stories were highlighted in the week’s corporate news. Akamai shares were lifted on a new circular investment deal in which it agreed to support Anthropic’s CPU workloads while offering the client company warrants that could convert into a 5% common equity stake in Akamai. Meanwhile, Oracle sent some shivers through the sector as it sent a force majeure notice over its New Mexico data center, trying to put off payments on the project if it is delayed. Laboratory services companies’ names were hit on Tuesday after CMS announced it had found significant overcharges for their services to Medicare and would seek payment curtailments that could trim costs for Americans by $1B annually. On the inflationary side of the ledger, Celanese announced its fourth straight price increase this year for key industrial chemicals. McDonalds shares hit fresh 52-week lows as its investor day brought to light an $8.5B franchisee support plan and management warned that elevated inflation would keep customer traffic flat. And Tesla stock was dinged on Friday based on a report that its plans to ramp up Optimus production was hitting a snag due to supplier constraints related to the complex hand assemblies for the humanoid robots. 

 Investors head into the new quarter with the September U.S. jobs report set to provide the week’s biggest test for markets, while investors will also get a fresh inflation reading and another busy stretch for artificial intelligence. Friday’s employment report is expected to show the U.S. added 100K jobs in September, down from 162K in August. The data will give investors another read on labor-market momentum following the Federal Reserve’s September policy decision. Inflation returns to the spotlight Wednesday with the release of the core PCE price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. AI will also be prominent on Tuesday. OpenAI holds its DevDay, with CEO Sam Altman scheduled to deliver the opening keynote, while President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and technology executives are expected to meet separately to discuss artificial intelligence. On Saturday, OpenAI suspended training of AI agents after the agents gained access to U.S. government websites. Micron Technology reports Wednesday in the week’s standout tech earnings release. Nike, Accenture, Carnival and CarMax are also due to report.

Our BSD Global Tech Hedge Fund holds a 3% cash position, and the stock portfolio is 97% invested across two dozen tech vendors and end users. This portfolio is hedged with a 50% short equity index against the notional value of the invested stock portfolio. This hedge will incrementally grow (from the laddered Nasdaq put options strategy) if the stock market comes under pressure.