Good afternoon, you're listening to Markets Desk.
The semiconductor trade got a fresh jolt today as OpenAI's ChatGPT-six Astra release added fuel to a recovery that's been building since the sector troughed on July twenty-ninth. Memory chip names led the move higher, with traders reading the new model launch as a direct signal of accelerating AI infrastructure demand.
On the macro side, the story rattling bond desks this morning is a sharp repricing of Fed expectations. Surprisingly strong employment data has pushed the probability of a rate hike at this week's FOMC meeting to nearly sixty percent, with traders now pricing a twenty-five basis point move to three-point-seven-five to four percent. That puts Kevin Warsh's central bank in a politically uncomfortable spot, as the White House has stepped up pressure to hold rates steady — a tension that's keeping yield curves volatile heading into the decision.
And threading through all of this is a note of caution from Universa Investments chief Mark Spitznagel, who is warning that the AI-driven rally has one more euphoric leg before what he calls the crash of a lifetime. Spitznagel acknowledges the pain of waiting, but says the setup has never looked more dangerous.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
