Top U.S. Stories

  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled “Operation Economic Outcast” on Monday, sanctioning nearly 60 Iran-linked entities and warning countries doing business with Iran to sever financial ties or face U.S. retaliation. The administration did not immediately impose secondary sanctions on Iran’s trading partners. (AP)
  • Court filings revealed the Department of Homeland Security sent undercover agents to community and church meetings and obtained labor unions’ financial records, raising questions about the scope of domestic surveillance. (AP)
  • Forecasters warned that Tropical Storm Moke could bring up to 15 inches of rain to parts of Hawaii’s Big Island, enough to cause dangerous flooding and mudslides. (AP)
  • All eyes are on Nvidia’s fiscal Q2 earnings, due after Wednesday’s close (Thursday morning in Japan). Analysts expect revenue near $92 billion. Why it matters: the report is widely seen as the key test of whether the AI infrastructure spending boom still has legs — a disappointment could ripple through the entire tech-heavy market. (Nikkei)
  • The Treasury Department is more than doubling planned long-bond buybacks after a rise in long-term yields. (AP)

Markets

U.S. stocks rose Tuesday: the Dow added 160.24 points (+0.30%) to 53,577.40, the S&P 500 gained 24.42 points (+0.32%) to 7,677.28, and the Nasdaq climbed 171.11 points (+0.66%) to 26,151.30. (AP) Brent crude fell 3.6% to $87.27 a barrel. (AP)

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rebounded 0.50% (+328.34 points) to close at 65,856.43 on Tuesday, its first gain in three sessions, though gains were capped by the tug-of-war between U.S. rate expectations and semiconductor-stock swings. (Nikkei) The yen continued to weaken, trading around ¥159.2–159.4 per dollar in Tokyo on Tuesday — creeping back toward the psychologically important ¥160 level despite last month’s joint Japan-U.S. intervention that had briefly pushed it to the ¥157 range. (Minkabu; frankfurter.app)

Stocks in Focus

Semiconductor and AI-related names are the center of gravity heading into Nvidia’s earnings. China property-sector sentiment got a symbolic jolt after Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan was sentenced to life in prison on Aug. 20 for fraud and bribery. Evergrande had defaulted with more than $300 billion in liabilities, though the sector’s underlying structural problems remain unresolved. Energy stocks are moving on the new Iran sanctions, and European defense names remain in focus as the UK’s new PM Andy Burnham made his first foreign trip to Kyiv, co-chairing a “coalition of the willing” meeting with Zelenskyy, Macron, and Merz on Ukraine’s Independence Day. (AP; Euronews)

Compass Insight

Markets are in a holding pattern, and for good reason: Nvidia’s earnings and the Jackson Hole symposium are just days away, and neither stocks nor bonds want to commit before those catalysts land. The quieter but more persistent story is the yen, which has drifted from the ¥157 range straight back toward ¥160 in barely a month, despite the joint intervention that was supposed to draw a line. For households and businesses with dollar exposure, that’s a reminder that currency intervention buys time, not a floor. Short term, watch Thursday’s Nvidia print and Friday’s Warsh speech — both could move rates and risk assets more than anything else this week. Medium term, the ¥160 level and the pace of any Bank of Japan rate move are the two threads worth following; neither is resolved, and both feed directly into how expensive imports and borrowing get from here.

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Auto-generated and AI-written. Not investment advice.