Stocks rebounded a bit from yesterday, despite yields continuing their rise. Persistent upward pressure on Treasury yields, despite an announced intervention from the Treasury Department earlier this week kept pressure on equities all week, although volatility remained subdued into today’s options expiry.
On the week the SPX was lower by about -1.4%
Yields: the primary driver across asset classes this week, now back toward their highest levels of 2026, effectively unwinding the move earlier this week on the Treasury Department intervention. The 10YY ends the week at 4.74%, while the 30YY back to 5.28%. The long end remains the main source of pressure, shorter-duration yields have been much less problematic since the Sept rate hike odds fell.
Oil: WTI held steady near $87 today. It’s rise this week did a lot of damage to attempts to stop the rise in yields
Gold: continued its impressive multi-week rally, now just shy of $4,680.
DXY: ended the week quietly around 98.80 following its large move lower to begin the week.
Bitcoin: pretty much surging at this point, now near $77k.
VIX: into the weekend near 15.25. Remarkably low considering this week’s news. With both VIX expiration and monthly equity options expiration behind us, we could see vol grind higher into NVDA and Jackson Hole.
Mining stocks had a really nice day, led by FCX +7.5%.
Financials benefited from both yields and crypto this week. HOOD was higher by +13% today alongside BTC.
Energy names were flat today after a great week.
Articles Mentioned:
Dow jumps 500 points, but stocks post losing week (CNBC)
Anthropic Expects to Match or Top SpaceX’s Record IPO Size (Bloomberg)
US refiners are facing a looming supply drop from their biggest foreign crude supplier at a time when they need the oil the most. (Bloomberg)
Bitcoin on track for 23% weekly gain as investor optimism floods back
The “China shock 2.0” message from Trump officials (Axios)
Ken Griffin says Citadel unwound more than 80% of risk tied to Situational Awareness portfolio (CNBC)
The dominant narrative this week was the battle over long-duration yields. An announced intervention by the Treasury Department briefly paused the bond market sell-off, but that initial rally dissipated over the past few days with the 10-30YY right back to their cycle highs.
Equity volatility may have been artificially muted throughout the week due to the expiration effects, mostly notable given the volatility in other assets like gold and bitcoin. With option expiration now behind us, the dampening effect clears for the most part.
Jackson Hole Economic Symposium: Late next week, where the rise in long-end yields and intervention will no doubt be a major topic of conversation. Warsh speaks Friday morning.
NVIDIA Earnings: AI capex and overall AI trade vibes get a major update.
PCE/GDP: (Wednesday morn) arrives just ahead of key Jackson Hole speeches.
We’ll be back this weekend with a full preview.
Dan sits down with Paul Costolo, former CEO of Twitter and current VC. They start with Dick's early comedy days (Second City alongside Steve Carell, two SNL auditions that didn't pan out) and his stint writing for HBO's Silicon Valley, before diving into his path from founding FeedBurner to running Twitter through its IPO — including candid stories about the culture shift from private to public company life, and a surreal late-night run-in with Jack Dorsey in Paris in the middle of Elon Musk's takeover drama. From there they get into Dick's venture firm, 01 Advisors, and his thesis on investing in the AI "enablement layer" (the infrastructure sitting above the models) rather than chasing the flashiest apps. Dick shares his read on today's eye-popping valuations — including Stripe's $7 billion acquisition of OpenRouter and a leaked investor letter claiming "the singularity happened on New Year's Day" — and gives his predictions for the coming wave of AI IPOs, arguing Anthropic and SpaceX are well positioned while OpenAI could face a tougher road given its executive turnover and messaging challenges. They close by talking about prediction markets (and the striking gap between how well people think they're doing on platforms like Kalshi versus reality), before wrapping up with a plug for Dick's own podcast, the Dick and Paul Show.
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