Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets and the stories behind them.
Gas prices are holding stubbornly high, and crude oil alone isn't the culprit. Refining capacity has been squeezed hard by the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, tightening the processing market even as raw crude prices ease. Drivers heading into fall shouldn't expect much relief at the pump.
Shifting to tech, OpenAI is pushing back hard against Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit, arguing in a new court filing that the real story is Apple's inability to compete for top artificial intelligence talent. It's a pointed counterpunch — framing a legal dispute as a talent war Apple is quietly losing, and signaling OpenAI isn't interested in settling quietly.
And in commodity markets, coffee prices are pulling back this session, with arabica futures down roughly one percent and robusta off by more than one and a half percent. Forecasts calling for dry weather across Brazil's key growing regions next week are the driver — that drier stretch should let harvested beans dry properly, easing supply concerns that had kept prices elevated through much of the summer.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
