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Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

• BOJ Raises Rates to a 31-Year High as the yen weakens anyway.

• Gold and Treasuries Rally as falling oil eases inflation fears.

• Hong Kong Follows the Fed With Its First Rate Hike since 2023.

• Foreign Treasury Holdings Fall to a Nine-Month Low as overseas ownership declines.

• U.S. Jobless Claims Fall to 196,000 as the labor market stays resilient.

• Oil Falls for a Third Straight Day as Saudi supply disruption fears ease.

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Market News

Oil Cools, Stocks Heat Up

Stocks bounced back Thursday as falling oil prices and lower Treasury yields eased inflation fears following the Fed’s first rate hike since 2023. The S&P 500 rose 1.14% for its best day in six weeks, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.69% and chip stocks climbed more than 3%. The 10-year Treasury yield fell back to around 4.94% after recently hitting its highest level since 2007, while Brent crude settled below $105 a barrel.

The pullback in oil helped ease fears that Wednesday’s hike would mark the beginning of an aggressive tightening cycle, although the Fed is still signaling more tightening could be ahead. Solid labor data also helped sentiment, with initial jobless claims falling to 196,000, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he expects the company to sell roughly twice as many chips over the coming year as AI adoption spreads across industries.

That relief carried into Friday morning. Oil extended its slide for a third straight session, with Brent falling roughly 2% to around $102.50 and WTI hovering near $100 as concerns over Saudi supply disruptions eased. Saudi Arabia is reportedly working to restore part of its East-West pipeline capacity while increasing alternative crude shipments.

Overnight, the Bank of Japan raised its policy rate to 1.25%, the highest in 31 years, but the yen weakened after the 7-2 decision struck investors as less hawkish than expected. Asian stocks generally moved higher as lower oil prices added to the risk-on mood. U.S. investors now turn to industrial production data and additional Fed commentary later today.

Peel Take: Thursday’s rebound suggests Wall Street is getting more comfortable with the Fed’s return to rate hikes, especially as oil and long-term yields cool. The Fed is not declaring victory yet, and most policymakers still see more tightening ahead. But if crude keeps retreating, one of the market’s biggest inflation headaches gets smaller, giving investors more room to focus on earnings and the AI trade instead.

What's Ripe

Generac Holdings Inc. (GNRC) 18.34% 

• Generac surged 18.34% after signing a long-term agreement to supply Amazon with backup generators for its data centers. Initial deliveries are expected to total about $2.4 billion in 2027 and 2028, while Amazon could ultimately spend as much as $8 billion under the arrangement. Amazon also received warrants to buy up to 1.69 million Generac shares.

• Peel Take: AI infrastructure needs a lot more than chips. It also needs reliable power, and Generac just landed one of the clearest validations yet of that opportunity. A $2.4 billion initial commitment from Amazon is massive for a company that generated roughly $4.2 billion of revenue last year, turning the old-school generator maker into another way to play the data-center boom.

Arm Holdings (ARM) 8.57% 

• Arm jumped 8.57% after CEO Rene Haas said he is increasingly confident the company can secure enough supply to turn roughly $2 billion of customer demand for its new AGI data-center CPU into revenue. Supply constraints had previously limited how much of that demand Arm expected to fulfill.

• Peel Take: Arm’s push beyond licensing and into selling its own data-center chips is starting to look more tangible. If it can actually convert that $2 billion demand pipeline into sales, the company gets another direct way to participate in AI infrastructure spending alongside its traditional licensing and royalty business.

What's Rotten

CoreWeave (CRWV) 4.16%

• CoreWeave fell 4.16% after announcing a $3 billion convertible-note offering and a new at-the-market program allowing it to sell up to 35 million Class A shares, as the AI cloud provider continues funding its aggressive data-center expansion.

• Peel Take: AI infrastructure takes an absurd amount of capital. CoreWeave’s latest financing gives it more firepower to keep building, but the convert adds potential future dilution while the ATM program can dilute shareholders directly. The AI boom is increasingly becoming a financing boom too.

Paramount Skydance (PSKY) 4.63%

• Paramount Skydance fell 4.63% after Barclays resumed coverage with an Underweight rating and an $8 price target, warning that its planned $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery carries substantial deleveraging, restructuring, and execution risks.

• Peel Take: Bigger does not automatically mean better. Combining two massive media companies could create scale, but it also means taking on a complicated balance sheet, integrating streaming platforms and studios, and trying to cut costs without weakening the content that keeps subscribers around.

🧠 Technical Trip

Interview Q&A from Deutsche Bank

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🦈 Deal Deep Dive

M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions

• Crusoe Raises $3.9 Billion at a $30.9 Billion Valuation as AI infrastructure funding keeps booming.

• Holtec Postpones Its Planned U.S. IPO after tougher market conditions hit nuclear stocks.

• Brookfield Invests Up to $600 Million in ACME to expand green ammonia and methanol projects.

• Novo Nordisk Signs Up to $1.4 Billion Orbis Deal to develop oral cardiometabolic treatments.

• Bain Capital Ventures Raises $1.6 Billion for Fund XI targeting the next generation of technology companies.

Student Success Corner

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

A stock trades at $50 and is expected to generate $5 of EPS next year. If its forward P/E multiple compresses from 10× to 8×, but expected EPS rises 20%, what is the implied new stock price?

Answer: $48

Today

A company has $500 million of revenue and a 30% gross margin. Management cuts COGS by 8%, while revenue stays unchanged. What is the company’s new gross margin?

How Would You Rate Today's Peel?

Happy Investing,
Chris, Elie, Mitchell, Fernanda, Nick, & Patrick

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