Wall Street books its best month since May today, three days after its own Fed chair explained why he may have to raise rates. Good morning and welcome to today's market chronicle. It's Monday, August 31, 2026.
Friday the S&P 500 closed at 7,711.76, down a quarter of a percent, the Nasdaq off seven tenths, all of it delivered by Kevin Warsh telling Jackson Hole the Fed will "have work to do" if it is not confident inflation is heading back to two. Translation: he may hike in September. The two year jumped eleven basis points to 4.34%, its highest in a month, and September hike odds went from roughly a third to a coin flip, depending which venue you believe. And yet August still closes up about three percent, the first up month since May, tech up nearly six, Nvidia ($NVDA) more than eight, Micron Technology ($MU) thirteen. So the story le tout-Wall Street is selling itself this morning is that the machines are profitable enough to absorb a hike. Perhaps. Overnight Central Command said US forces struck two rocket launchers on Iran's Larak Island, the ones being prepared to push mines into the Strait of Hormuz. Crude went up two percent. S&P futures went down one tenth of one percent. Everyone pretends not to notice that the world's most important oil chokepoint now trades as a rounding error, and that the people who spent August buying a September cut have quietly stopped mentioning it.
Today brings Chicago PMI at 9:45 and the Dallas Fed at 10:30, neither of which anyone will remember by Wednesday, plus the last hours of month end window dressing, that monthly festival where portfolios briefly become what their fact sheets claim. Then JOLTS and ISM manufacturing tomorrow, ADP, claims, ISM services, and Friday payrolls, the number that decides whether Warsh gets to be as brave as Rogoff says he is, all of it while the Treasury secretary buys back paper to hold yields down from the other side of the same table. Really.
On our own book, TKO Group Holdings ($TKO) is not working. Eight sessions in, it is down 4.8 percent, from 193.94 to 184.64, while the S&P managed a quarter of a percent over the same stretch. The thesis was rights fee flow through against a fixed cost base. So far the tape has a different view. A loss gets the same paragraph and the same word count as a win, because otherwise this letter is marketing.
Levels, cleanly. Gold near 4,459 an ounce, down more than two percent on the week, which is a peculiar week for the world's favorite panic asset to have when the news is naval mines. Brent for November above 90, WTI near 86. Bitcoin around 78,150. The ten year at roughly 4.72%, and S&P futures a tenth lower into the open.
August was generous. September has payrolls, a Fed that has stopped pretending, and a strait full of mines. See you tomorrow.