A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY. Here’s a full recap: 1. Apple $AAPL introduced iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone, featuring the largest display ever on an iPhone while folding into a pocketable form. The device includes a 5.4-inch outer display and 7.6-inch inner display, a titanium frame, IP68 rating, and color options including Star White and Night Sky. Apple says Duo uses a custom variable-torque hinge with magnets to keep it closed, a flatter foldable display designed to reduce the visible crease and plastic feel, and a new “perceptually flat” nanotexture display. The phone also adds Touch ID in the side button, Apple Pencil support, a two-camera system, side-by-side apps, multi-window support, and new Duo layouts for Slack, Zoom, and Netflix. Pricing starts at $2,000. 2. The U.S. Treasury announced a new $6B buyback of longer-dated debt, but yields did the opposite of what the policy was supposed to signal: they spiked. The exact size of the buyback is less important than the message Bessent was trying to send: that Treasury can help support liquidity in longer-duration bonds and calm pressure in the market. Instead, credit markets appear to be rejecting that signal, with the 10-year Treasury yield rising to 4.85%, its highest level in 3 years. The takeaway is that investors are not just watching buyback headlines; they are demanding higher compensation for duration, deficits, inflation risk, and long-end supply. 3. Nebius $NBIS said AI infrastructure demand is still running well ahead of supply, with visibility now stretching to 24+ months and customers already asking for 2028 capacity, including tens of thousands of Vera Rubin GPUs. Management also framed the Palantir $PLTR partnership as a major enterprise channel, with Nebius providing the AI cloud stack and Palantir adding its software layer and customer base. The key takeaway: demand is broadening from AI-native customers into enterprise platforms, older GPUs remain economically useful for certain workloads, and Nebius is pushing an asset-light model with power and data-center partners to scale faster. 4. Google $GOOGL plans to invest €13B in Finland AI infrastructure over the next 2 years, marking its largest-ever single investment in Europe, according to Bloomberg. The buildout includes 3 new data centers in Kajaani, Muhos, and Vaala, along with an expansion of Google’s existing Hamina site. Google is also adding new wind-power agreements and a 94 MW battery system at Kajaani, while Fortum signed a 22-year power deal that will eventually cover 50% of output from its two-reactor Loviisa nuclear plant. The projects are expected to support more than 37,000 jobs during construction and about 7,000 jobs once completed, underscoring how AI infrastructure growth is increasingly tied to long-term power access across Europe. 5. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $TSLA with 2.9M contracts, $AAPL with 2.8M contracts, $NVDA with 2.4M contracts, $META with 1.5M contracts, $MU with 1.1M contracts, $INTC with 956K contracts, $SPCX with 852K contracts, $AMD with 778K contracts, $GOOGL with 635K contracts, and $AMZN with 624K contracts. 6. Amazon $AMZN is tapping the UK bond market for the first time, selling its first-ever sterling bonds in a four-part deal with maturities ranging from 3 to 19 years, according to Bloomberg. The move comes as Amazon continues diversifying its funding sources to support its AI infrastructure buildout. The company has already sold more than $92B in bonds this year, making it the largest hyperscaler debt issuer of 2026. This is Amazon’s fourth non-dollar bond market this year after euros, Swiss francs, and Canadian dollars. The bigger question is investor appetite, with recent AI-linked bond deals seeing weaker demand and higher borrowing costs, making the 19-year tranche a key test of how much long-duration AI debt the market is willing to absorb. 7. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old former OpenAI employee, is leaving the AI industry over concerns that the race to superintelligence is moving too fast. Coxon joined Anthropic earlier this year because of its safety-focused reputation and says the company’s efforts are genuine, but believes competition between labs makes safety trade-offs difficult to avoid. “We’re on track for a lot of the most aggressive of these scenarios where by the end of next year things could be out of control already,” he said. He added that researchers inside the industry are increasingly using terms like “crunchtime” and “endgame” to describe the pace of capability gains. His departure is notable because Anthropic has positioned itself as one of the more safety-focused AI labs, even as it pushes toward more capable models and a potential IPO. Coxon’s view is that the problem is now bigger than any one company and may require meaningful coordination across industry or government before self-improving AI systems become much harder to control. 8. The Bank of Japan remains the dominant force in Japan’s bond market, now holding roughly 46% of all Japanese government bonds. That is down 8 percentage points from its 2023 peak and the lowest share since 2021, but the BoJ still owns more JGBs than banks, life insurers, pension funds, and foreign investors combined. For context, the BoJ held just about 10% of JGBs in 2013. This comes even after BoJ JGB holdings fell by $310B over the 12 months ending in July, the largest 12-month decline on record. Total holdings are now down to roughly $3.3T, the lowest since 2020, but still about 400% above 2012 levels. 9. OpenAI is calling for mandatory federal AI safety rules, saying Congress should create capability-based requirements for the small number of labs building the most advanced AI systems. The company says those rules should include independent testing, stronger cybersecurity standards, and incident reporting, but should not broadly apply to startups, small developers, or open-weight models. OpenAI is also backing four California bills headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom covering independent AI safety assessments, AI-auditor standards, protections for minors using companion chatbots, and gene-synthesis screening. The company also said it is prepared to slow or stop development or deployment if safety risks become unacceptable, and that fully autonomous recursive self-improvement should not be pursued unless it can be done safely. 10. White House advisers privately warned President Trump that Iran may be able to resist U.S. pressure through January 2029, despite his public prediction of a swift end to the conflict, according to WSJ. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other advisers reportedly discussed the possibility of the war extending beyond Inauguration Day in 2029. At the same time, Iran’s IRGC warned it would hit 20 targets for every 2 or 3 Iranian targets struck, while also demanding an end to hostilities, an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, an end to Yemen’s blockade, and the release of $24B in frozen Iranian assets. 11. U.S. mortgage demand fell as rates moved higher again, with mortgage applications dropping 2.7% last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Refinancing applications declined 6.2%, while home-purchase applications slipped 0.2%. The average 30-year mortgage rate rose 6 basis points to 6.85%, adding more pressure on borrowers and keeping the housing market stuck between elevated financing costs and weak affordability. 12. Trump said the Iran war will end “immediately after” the election, arguing Iran “can’t hold out any longer.” He said the U.S. is “not looking for a deal,” though he left the door open to negotiations, saying talks “could possibly happen.” Trump also said the conflict will “take longer than the midterms,” tying the timeline directly to the election calendar. The comments keep Iran, oil, and geopolitical risk front and center for markets as the conflict continues. WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.
