- The Peel
- Posts
- Divide Over October Cut
Divide Over October Cut
Fed minutes showed a split on an October cut and doubt over December.
Silver banana goes to…
Your Daily Dose of Market & Career Clarity
📬 Delivered to 150,000+ ambitious readers
🎯 In this issue:
Banana Bits: Finance headlines that actually matter
Market Summary: Nvidia earnings ignite market rebound
What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks
Technical Trip: Interview Question with J.P. Morgan
Lesson from the Library: Learn how VCs spot potential, structure deals, and turn vision into venture returns.
Deal Dispatch: M&A, IPOs, and other transactions
Market Snapshot
📉 Banana Bits
House Democrat Cherfilus-McCormick was charged with stealing $5M in COVID funds.
Nvidia beat expectations with stronger-than-forecast revenue.
Fed minutes showed a split on an October cut and doubt over December.
Trump signed the Epstein files bill, triggering a 30-day release countdown.
Australia’s RBA says the labor market is too tight to hit its inflation target.
Cr*pto markets shed $1T as B*tcoin continued its slide.
Trump joked about firing Bessent if rates don’t come down.
DFIN’s Venue VDR: Built for Career-Making Deals
When navigating critical business transactions, speed, security, and control aren’t optional - they’re everything. That’s why DFIN rebuilt the Venue® virtual data room, to be the most modern VDR in the market, engineered to lead the industry in speed and simplicity for dealmakers who operate at the highest level.
From M&A to IPOs and all critical transactions in between, Venue was built for ease of use with an intuitive user interface and clean navigation, enabling users to self-launch new data rooms and manage multiple data rooms on demand.
Backed by DFIN’s 30+ years of financial industry expertise and 24/7 expert support, Venue isn’t just a platform - it’s your strategic advantage when the stakes are highest.
If you’re ready to accelerate deal execution, own the room with the reimagined Venue.
Market Recap
Nvidia Carries the Market
Nvidia’s robust revenue forecast eases worries about a potential bubble in the artificial intelligence industry that had recently roiled the markets.
Nvidia jumped 5% in post-market trading after reporting earnings. It also reverberated through the broader market, with S&P 500 futures rising 1.3% and Nasdaq 100 contracts climbing 1.9%.
On the other hand, peer Alphabet also rose after receiving positive reviews of the newly released Gemini AI model. However, it is still not clear skies ahead for investors, as Wall Street awaits the September Job Reports, which will be released on Thursday.
Traders nearly priced out a Fed cut next month after the Bureau of Labor Statistics said it won’t publish an October jobs report, but will incorporate the payrolls figures into the November data due after the Fed’s final meeting of 2025.
What's Ripe
Semrush Holdings Inc. (SEMR) 74.0%
SEMR soared 74% to $11.76 after Adobe reached an agreement to acquire the digital marketing company for $12 a share, or a total equity value of $1.9 billion.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026, the companies said. Adobe stock fell 2%.
La-Z-Boy Inc. (LZB) 20.2%
LZB soared 20%. The furniture maker topped analysts’ earnings and revenue targets in the fiscal second quarter.
What's Rotten
Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AGIO) 50.9%
AGIO slumped 50.9% after the biotech said a Phase 3 trial for mitapivat, a drug to treat sickle cell disease, had failed to meet several endpoints.
The stock has fallen 32% this year.
Plug Power Inc. (PLUG) 11.2%
PLUG slumped 11.2% after the hydrogen technology provider announced plans to offer $375 million worth of senior convertible notes.
The offering would dilute existing shareholders’ stake in the company.
🧠 Technical Trip
Interview Q&A from J.P. Morgan
👉 Want 1-on-1 recruiting help from Evercore bankers & 2,000+ top mentors? Apply to WSO Academy
📚 Lesson from the Library
🎥 Venture Capital: The Business of Betting on Innovation
Learn how VCs spot potential, structure deals, and turn vision into venture returns.
🌟 WSO Academy Q4 Update
🎤 WSO Academy Speaker Series
We’ve now hosted four Speaker Series events with great guests across Investment Banking, Hedge Funds, and Asset/Wealth Management, and plenty more are in the works. The students can watch these past events on their dashboard:
Scott L. Bok – Chairman & CEO of Greenhill & Co.
Michael Harris – Vice Chairman & Global Head of Capital Markets at the New York Stock Exchange
Zach Levenick – Founder, THG Securities Advisors
John Morgan – Chief Investment Officer, Morgan Capital Family Office
🦈 Deal Dispatch
M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions
Walmart is in talks to buy an Israeli-founded anti-scam startup.
Palo Alto Networks will acquire Chronosphere for $3.35B.
ID verification startup Incode is seeking up to a $3B valuation.
Trump claims $270B in deals are being signed at the U.S.-Saudi forum.
CICC is absorbing two smaller firms to form a $140B brokerage.
Banana Brain Teaser
Previous
On a certain day, orangeade was made by mixing a certain amount of orange juice with an equal amount of water. The next day, orangeade was made by mixing he same amount of orange juice with twice the amount of water. On both days, all the orangeade that was made was sold. If the revenue from selling the orangeade was the same for both days, and if the orangeade was sold at $0.60 per glass on the first day, what was the price per glass on the second day?
Answer: $0.40
Today
A glucose solution contains 15 grams of glucose per 100 cubic centimeters of solution. If 45 cubic centimeters of the solution were poured into an empty container, how many grams of glucose would be in the container?
The trick is to survive first and make money afterward.
How Would You Rate Today's Peel?
Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mitchell, Fernanda, & Patrick