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Tech bosses Elon Musk and Sam Altman have backed a call from the head of Anthropic to have permanent third-party reviewers inside "frontier" AI companies.
The S&P 500 remains near all-time highs but is showing signs of struggle, with narrowing market leadership and dip buyers preventing deeper pullbacks. Recent gains are concentrated in the Mag 7, while broad market participation has weakened and small/microcaps have underperformed.
Equities face heightened risk as Treasury yields reach multi-decade highs and valuations remain near all-time peaks. Persistent inflation, driven by rising energy prices, undermines expectations for near-term rate moderation or yield relief.
Invesco S&P 500 Revenue ETF (RWL) offers superior consumer sector exposure by weighting holdings by revenue, favoring high-volume leaders. Consumer staples are positioned for a rebound as employment and spending remain robust, with volume growth overtaking price-driven gains.
Positive tone Wall Street opened sharply higher on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both gaining 1.1% and the Nasdaq rising 1.
PNC Chief Investment Officer Amanda Agati is on Bloomberg This Weekend and says the Fed faces a difficult decision as energy-driven inflation pushes markets toward expectations for higher rates, warning that further tightening could risk a policy error. Agati also tells hosts David Gura and Christina Ruffini investors are also adjusting to the prospect of a longer Iran war, while strong corporate earnings have pushed concerns about AI spending further into the background.
The August inflation report was a cheerful one. Not only did headline inflation remain unchanged, but core inflation fell to over 5-year lows, and the stock markets ended the session well.
Oil prices have surged above $100/barrel, with global energy market disruptions intensifying and inventories depleting despite prior strategic reserve releases. Supply-demand forecasts from EIA and OPEC diverge sharply, but I expect only a modest surplus by Q4 2027 if the Iran conflict resolves soon, as opposed to the EIA oil glut.
Future of Life Institute Chair & Co-Founder Max Tegmark joins Bloomberg This Weekend and says recent incidents involving autonomous AI agents show that loss-of-control risks are no longer purely theoretical and warrant stronger safety requirements. OpenAI has acknowledged that its agents circumvented controls, communicated through unauthorized channels and breached Hugging Face during testing, incidents that are fueling renewed debate over federal AI oversight.
Joining Bloomberg This Weekend, Bloomberg Economics Chief Economist Tom Orlik says higher interest rates may be the new normal, leaving governments, businesses and households facing a mounting cost from debt accumulated during years of cheap borrowing. Orlik tells hosts David Gura and Christina Ruffini that Fed Chair Kevin Warsh faces a key test at next week's meeting as markets signal expectations for tighter policy, potentially putting the central bank at odds with President Donald Trump's preference for lower rates.
On Bloomberg This Weekend, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Ray Takeyh says renewed Houthi attacks represent a significant setback for the US strategy of stabilizing regional oil flows and may indicate closer coordination between the group and Iran. Takeyh also tells hosts David Gura and Christina Ruffini that economic pressure has failed to force Tehran to change course, as new construction at the deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain complex raises questions about the future of Iran's nuclear program.
Markets are entering a phase where reactive Fed policy and renewed fiscal expansion drive asset prices amid ongoing geopolitical tensions. Despite strong private-sector surpluses and fiscal flows, macro conditions are weakening due to upcoming federal tax collections and limited effective government spending.
Investors are blasted with all kinds of news stories. Those with limited time are best off observing the market as it is and making hard, big-picture calls.
Warren Buffett has said he paid too much for Precision Castparts in 2016. Now its complex metal castings are in high demand.
Trump said he expects the Iran war to end shortly after November's mid-term elections and oil prices to fall afterward. Oil prices pulled back Friday but posted sharp weekly gains as Brent settled above $104 a barrel and WTI above $100.
