Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Nike is down roughly seventy-seven percent from its all-time peak, and the question heading into October first earnings is whether the worst is priced in. China remains the open wound, with sales falling twelve percent last quarter, and investors are watching closely for any signal that the brand's turnaround strategy is gaining traction.
Shifting to semiconductals, Intel is having what analysts are calling its best calendar year in more than four decades, but history offers a cautionary note. The five strongest years for Intel stock since nineteen eighty-one were each followed by returns ranging from a modest seven percent gain to a punishing sixty percent decline. Momentum and mean reversion are two sides of the same coin.
On the policy and technology front, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is set to sit down with President Trump for their first-ever dinner meeting. The timing is notable given that Amodei's push for government AI regulation has gained little traction in Washington, while Bill Gates separately told Meet the Press that AI safety concerns are, in his words, not a hoax, calling for his own meeting with the president on the issue.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
