Andy Chen

Multiple major US artificial intelligence platforms experienced service disruptions on Thursday morning local time. According to outage tracking website Downdetector, OpenAI, Anthropic's Claude, Elon Musk's xAI Grok, and AI coding tool Cursor all received a large volume of user outage reports.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller stated that while US inflation remains significantly above the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) 2% target, recent data has shown signs of cooling. If data released over the next two weeks continues to improve, he would lean toward supporting keeping the federal funds rate unchanged; however, if August inflation rebounds, he may support a rate hike at the September 15–16 FOMC meeting.

On September 3, Eastern Time, SpaceX (SPCX) shares touched near recent highs in early trading, rising over 5%. Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan reportedly stated that SpaceX is expected to be a winner in the short-term computing power shortage, raising the price target from $250 to $280 and assigning a "Buy" rating to SpaceX.

Shares of Broadcom (AVGO) fell as much as 6% after the company reported its third-quarter fiscal 2026 financial results on September 2, Eastern Time. As of press time, the decline narrowed to 3.49%, with the stock trading at $354.43. During the period, Broadcom's revenue surged 86% year-over-year to $29.591 billion, topping market expectations of $29.4 billion and sustaining its rapid growth driven by AI demand.

U.S. bond yields pulled back from high levels as New York Fed President John Williams stated that the rise in long-term bond yields was not driven by inflation concerns, but rather reflected economic strength. U.S. stocks rebounded, with the Dow rising about 300 points, while Nvidia and Dell Technologies delivered standout performances. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.56% to 53,061.95 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.45% to 26,217.83 points; and the S&P 500 Index advanced 0.46% to 7,666.60 points.

Google (GOOGL) released two new models on September 2, Eastern Time: Gemini 3.8 Flash and Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber. This marks the third Flash series model released by Google within six weeks, continuing the high-speed and low-cost characteristics of the previous Gemini 3.7 Flash while further enhancing capabilities in code generation, complex reasoning, agentic tasks, and cybersecurity.

On September 2 ET, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Google (GOOGL) is not required to sell its ad exchange, AdX, but must make its ad-tech tools interoperable with products operated by competitors. This means Google has once again avoided a forced breakup in the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against its advertising business.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel disclosed the investment rationale behind Google (GOOGL) parent company Alphabet during an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. The company reportedly increased its holdings in Alphabet stock by a total of approximately $17 billion in the second quarter, propelling it to become the third-largest holding in Berkshire's equity portfolio. Abel stated that Google is an "important player" in the field of artificial intelligence.

Following a new round of U.S. strikes on Iranian targets, Brent crude broke above $95, while the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield reached a new recent high, both weighing on market trading sentiment. Major U.S. stock indices fell, led by tech shares, while consumer and pharmaceutical stocks bucked the trend to post gains. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.79% to 52,766.88; the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 1.03% to 26,099.77; and the S&P 500 Index lost 0.71% to 7,631.47.

As of August 2026, Nvidia retained its top spot globally with a market capitalization of $5.32 trillion, closely followed by Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet. The biggest change in the global market cap rankings in August was SpaceX, whose market cap rose to $1.89 trillion with a monthly gain of 32.59%, while Tesla, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology also recorded sizable gains. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 1.98% in August, staging a modest recovery from a sharp 20.61% correction in July.

On September 1 Eastern Time, shares of SanDisk (SNDK) rose 5% yesterday after being included in the MSCI USA Standard Index, and subsequently reversed earlier losses to gain over 2% today. According to the latest memory industry research from TrendForce, combined revenue for the world's top five Enterprise SSD brands reached nearly $37.59 billion in the second quarter of 2026, representing a quarter-on-quarter surge of 103.6%.

After Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered hawkish signals at the Jackson Hole annual symposium last week, markets raised their bets on further rate hikes this year. Driven by rising rate hike expectations, the 10-year US Treasury yield hit its highest level since January 2025 for two consecutive days on Monday and Tuesday. JPMorgan's trading team stated that it has adjusted its stance on US equities from bullish to "tactically cautious/neutral" ahead of the Fed's rate decision on September 16.

On September 1, Eastern Time, Apple (AAPL) completed its first executive leadership transition since 2011. John Ternus, Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, succeeded Tim Cook as the company's eighth Chief Executive Officer, with Cook transitioning to Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.

On August 31, Eastern Time, SanDisk (SNDK) reversed a late-session loss of over 2% to gain more than 5%, closing at $1,566.70 and reclaiming several short- and medium-term moving averages, including the 5-day and 10-day lines. On August 12, MSCI announced the results of its August 2026 quarterly index review for its equity indices, deciding to add SanDisk to the MSCI Global Index after the market close on August 31.

Military conflicts between the US and Iran escalated again, with reports indicating Donald Trump may approve the resumption of strike operations against Iran. Meanwhile, global oil prices and US Treasury yields both surged, exacerbating pessimism in the stock market. Major US stock indexes fell, led by losses in cloud providers, while memory stocks rallied late in the session. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.70% to 53,185.90; the Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.12% to 26,370.89; and the S&P 500 Index declined 0.33% to 7,686.14.

On August 31, Eastern Time, Amazon (AMZN) shares fell over 3%, dropping below the $260 level. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is set to file a lawsuit against Amazon over advertising pricing, alleging that the company manipulated merchant ad bids and secretly inflated advertising costs over the past seven years.

Nvidia (NVDA) and MediaTek jointly announced on Monday that Nvidia will invest $3.5 billion to subscribe to convertible bonds issued by MediaTek. This marks Nvidia's largest direct investment outside the United States to date. As the conversion price, maturity, and potential shareholding ratio have not been disclosed, the transaction should be understood as an investment in convertible bonds rather than Nvidia already holding direct equity in MediaTek.

On August 31, Eastern Time, Tesla (TSLA) shares rose over 4%, reclaiming the $360 mark. Recently, the Trump administration stepped in to regulate the power supply chain, citing national security concerns. Last Wednesday, Tesla officially signed an emergency executive order prohibiting the U.S. power grid from procuring and installing foreign-made transformers, core power equipment, and supporting software that pose security risks, while reserving policy space for subsequent restrictions on existing installed equipment and authorizing the Department of Energy to gradually advance implementation based on actual conditions.

More than 100 companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft, have signed an open letter warning that AI-driven cyberattacks could become more prevalent and sophisticated in the coming months. Spearheaded by OpenAI, the signatories span AI companies, cloud providers, cybersecurity firms, financial institutions, payment processors, and other major technology corporations. Key participants include Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Adobe, Oracle, IBM, Capital One, Mastercard, and Visa.

Oracle (ORCL) shares have experienced a sharp drawdown since peaking on June 1, falling from a peak of $249 down to $114.50. This decline represents 4 to 5 standard deviations of Oracle's historical volatility. Technical factors—including concentrated investor sell-offs, widening credit spreads, and market-based equity issuances—have combined to exacerbate downside pressure on the stock price. However, the steep drop in Oracle's stock price does not necessarily imply a deterioration in the fundamentals of its AI cloud business.