Source: BIT Securities
Last night, the U.S. stock market "celebrated," following the release of favorable market signals from the previous day's "little nonfarm" data. Federal Reserve Governor Waller's remarks last night again conveyed dovish signals, indicating that the triggers for interest rate hikes are slowing down; all three major indexes rose collectively, with gold, silver, bitcoin, and other safe-haven and alternative assets rising in sync, and technology growth stocks performing particularly well, while the AI hardware industry chain noticeably underperformed the market. On the surface, this appears to be a broad-based rally across all assets, but decomposing the driving logic reveals that it is essentially a macro emotional repair driven by marginal dovish statements from Federal Reserve officials and the decline in U.S. Treasury yields, rather than a substantial improvement in fundamentals or industrial trends. As the FOMC meeting approaches, trade data and geopolitical situations indicate that inflation pressures have not truly diminished, and next week's August CPI data may become a key variable in assessing whether this round of repair can continue.
I. Market Review: Structural Divergence Under the Surface of Broad Gains
As of the close of the U.S. stock market on September 3, the Dow Jones rose by about 580 points, up about 1.08%, closing at 53,656 points; the Nasdaq Composite Index rose about 1.2%, around 26,572 points; the S&P 500 Index rose about 1.04%, closing at 7,743 points; the Nasdaq 100 Index similarly rose more than 1%. Individual stocks displayed significant structural divergence: first, traditional tech giants and related growth stocks led the way with Tesla and SpaceX concept stocks closing up about 6%, Oracle, Dell Technologies, and Meta closing up more than 4%, and Microsoft closing up more than 3%; second, the AI hardware industry chain collectively weakened, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index performing flatly and Broadcom closing down 6%, while the storage and optical communication sectors also underperformed the market; third, the software sector showed divergence, with Snowflake witnessing a substantial increase of over 20% due to better-than-expected performance (management attributed the growth to increased AI product penetration), representing one of the few cases of fundamentals-driven rising.
In terms of asset linkage, gold and silver simultaneously rose about 3%, bitcoin broke through the $80,000 mark, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds fell about 5 basis points to around 4.75%, and the U.S. dollar index weakened. The improvement in risk appetite also transmitted to the leading indicators of the Asia-Pacific market—Hong Kong stock futures rose nearly 1% in the overnight session, and the FTSE China A50 futures index rose about 0.3%.
II. Understanding Waller's Statement: Slowed Rate Hikes but Inflation Concerns Persist
The direct trigger for this round of market behavior was Federal Reserve Governor Waller's latest public statement last night: unless the upcoming inflation data shows an unexpected result, he tends to support maintaining interest rates. This statement quickly reflected on interest rate futures pricing, as the CME's FedWatch tool indicated that after Waller's speech, traders sharply reduced the probability of an interest rate hike within the next few weeks from the previous day's 63.2% to 50.4%, a decline of over 12 percentage points.
It should be noted that this is not an unconditional dovish signal, but is closer to a "slowed rate hikes, unresolved worries" intermediate state. For a period of time prior, market concerns about a rate hike in September had been rising, with the core logic being that the pace of inflation decline might be interrupted—any sign of a marginal rebound in the August CPI reading, even if it doesn't significantly exceed expectations, would be enough to tilt the policy balance back toward tightening. Waller's statement serves as a marginal easing of concern based on this worry; he explicitly linked the next rate decision to next week's August CPI data while also expressing cautious optimism regarding recent signs of inflation improvement and upcoming employment data. In other words, the Fed's current policy reaction function has not changed; the priority on inflation remains high, but there is a slight increase in tolerance for "data surprises" in the short term. This means that the continuation of this round of emotional repair heavily relies on whether next week's data can validate this optimism; the core variable of inflation itself has not been truly resolved.
III. The Essence of Structural Divergence: Valuation Repair in Response to Macro Emotion, Not Industrial Logic
From the perspective of asset pricing, last night's leading stocks—Tesla, SpaceX concepts, Oracle, Dell, Meta, Microsoft—generally exhibit characteristics of long-duration, high-valuation growth stocks, with their pricing being significantly more sensitive to risk-free rates (i.e., U.S. Treasury yields) compared to value or cyclical assets. After Waller's remarks led to a decline in yields, the discount rate assumptions for these types of assets improved, resulting in direct support at the valuation level—this is essentially a liquidity and interest rate expectation-driven valuation repair, rather than substantive changes in industrial fundamentals.
In contrast, the pricing logic of the AI hardware industry chain remains more anchored in the rhythm of capital expenditure and industrial competition, with relatively weak correlation to short-term interest rate changes. Broadcom's stock closed down 6% at $346.49—despite the company reporting third-quarter revenues of $29.6 billion (an annual increase of 86%) and AI revenue of $16.7 billion (a significant annual increase of 221%), which now accounts for 56% of total revenue, the outlook for fourth-quarter revenue of $34.8 billion slightly fell short of market expectations of $35.05 billion. As a result, the market reassessed its substitution potential and progress relative to Nvidia in the customized AI chip ASIC field, and the improvement in liquidity conditions struggled to offset specific negative information. The market's reaction reflects ongoing concerns regarding the fundamentals of "revenue growth without profit."
Snowflake's counter-trend surge provides a meaningful contrasting example: in the same macro environment, its rise primarily reflects the validation of performance regarding the monetization capabilities of AI products, which is a typical case of "fundamentals-driven" growth. This indicates that the market's logic regarding AI-related industries has entered a phase of performance verification, moving beyond the narrative-driven and interest-rate-sensitive phase.
IV. Inflation Pressures Persist: Dual Signals from Trade Data and Geopolitical Oil Prices
Waller's statement temporarily alleviated the market's anxiety over interest rate hikes, but zooming out to view the fundamentals, concerns supporting inflation and the threat of exogenous market factors such as war have not been resolved:
From the perspective of trade data, U.S. import and export data for July serves as an important reference for judging the CPI trend in August. The trade deficit in goods widened further that month, primarily driven by domestic import demand: capital goods imports maintained a high growth rate, reflecting that companies' willingness for capital expenditure has not been significantly suppressed by high interest rates, and there has been no clear weakening in import demand on the consumer side, with overall domestic demand proving more resilient than market expectations; meanwhile, export performance was relatively weak, and the pace of price declines for imported goods has slowed compared to previous periods. Overall, the current U.S. economy exhibits a pattern of "supported domestic demand, weak external demand," and has not entered a recessionary cooling phase, which constitutes a realistic basis for the marginal rebound risk in the August CPI.
Another clue lies in the geopolitical transmission chain of oil prices. The previously brokered temporary ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran broke down in mid-August, and this week has been tumultuous, with military confrontations between the U.S. and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz escalating: on August 31, the U.S. launched a new round of strikes against Iran, causing oil prices to rise sharply in a single day; from September 1 to 2, the U.S. further expanded the scope of its strikes, destroying approximately 100 military targets within Iran and, for the first time, employing a "tanker-for-tanker" retaliatory strategy, hitting two Iranian government tankers docking near the Iranian coast; Iran responded by launching about 25 ballistic missiles and dozens of drones at U.S. military bases near Jordan, though most were intercepted or failed to hit. As a result, Brent crude oil briefly surged to around $97 per barrel, while WTI remained above $90 per barrel. The recent interpretation of the U.S. military actions as "restrained," combined with OPEC+'s September production increase plan, prevented a further expansion of price gains, with oil prices overall experiencing high-level consolidation rather than a downward trend.
Looking ahead to next week's CPI release, the marginal lifting risk of energy prices on the August CPI has not yet been resolved; should the situation in the Strait of Hormuz fluctuate again or impact shipping traffic, imported inflation pressures may become more pronounced.
It is worth noting that the reason why safe-haven assets such as gold were able to rise in tandem against a backdrop of high oil prices last night is essentially due to the liquidity expectations improvement brought about by Waller's statement, which temporarily outweighed the potential negative of rising energy costs—however, this "interest rate-friendly hedge against energy risks" combination is not solid; should next week's CPI confirm that energy components significantly drive overall inflation, the market's previously optimistic pricing regarding Waller's dovish signals will face correction pressure. In other words, the easing of macro emotions is real, but the deeper issue of inflation remains unresolved at present.
V. Outlook for Next Week's CPI: Three Scenarios and Asset Pricing Paths
Next week's release of the August CPI data will be the most significant focus ahead of the Federal Reserve's FOMC meeting in September. Looking back at the previously released July data, CPI year-on-year was 3.4%, and core CPI year-on-year was 2.5%, showing marginal easing from previous levels, but there remains a noticeable gap from the 2% policy target; the foundation of inflation remains unstable. Incorporating factors such as domestic demand resilience and geopolitical oil price risks, after the CPI release next week, the market will likely develop along the following three paths:
1. CPI exceeds expectations: The pace of inflation decline is substantially interrupted, and the market will revise upward the probabilities of rate hikes in September and thereafter; the gains derived from expectation repair carry significant retracement risks, with long-duration growth stocks, precious metals, and interest rate-sensitive assets like cryptocurrencies likely to face the brunt of pressure.
2. CPI roughly in line with expectations: The Federal Reserve will likely continue the "wait-and-see" policy path, but officials' statements are expected to retain a cautious tone, with the November FOMC meeting continuing to be viewed as a potential policy observation window, and risk assets are likely to maintain a volatile pattern.
3. CPI significantly below expectations: The trend of inflation decline is confirmed anew, and the uniformly relaxed expectations for interest rate triggers will further consolidate, and may even open up discussions in the market for a more accommodative policy path by year-end; the current recovery trend could gain further support at the fundamental level, with both duration and space of continuation potentially exceeding current expectations.
It is important to emphasize that the nature of this rebound is more akin to a phased repair of expectations; the Federal Reserve has not signaled any intention to begin a rate-cutting cycle, and the overall stance of monetary policy remains tight. Until the August CPI data is released, directional uncertainty in overseas markets remains significant, with implied volatility at relatively high levels; the risk of short-term fluctuations and retracements should not be underestimated.
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