Trade Fears Fade

Wall Street shut off global trade war anxiety as the Fed rate cut approaches.

September 16, 2025

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: The market clawed its way to a positive gain

  • What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks 

  • Technical Trip: Interview Q&A from JPMorgan

Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

Market Recap

It Was Just a Bad Dream

The S&P 500 had soared 32% since President Trump announced the tariffs in April, with most analysts still expecting a runway. 

While Trump’s tariffs have started to bite into business, the market seems overly optimistic, given the Fed's rate cuts and continued optimism towards artificial intelligence. Analysts’ profit views for the first half of 2026 are climbing back toward where they stood at the beginning of the year.

While businesses are starting to get bitten by tariffs, its effect is not directly being shown in CPI data, but rather more in ISM activities. This indicates that businesses are still absorbing the increase in input costs rather than passing it on to consumers. 

It is definitely still too early to tell in which direction we are heading, but this rally isn’t completely out of the blue. The market isn’t really "ignoring" the tariff problem, but with the recent tariff agreements of the U.S. towards other countries, it creates a sense of stability in the mind of investors, thus leading to this market rally. 

Blueflame’s IC memo analysis automation saved me over 10 hours this weekend—I actually got to play golf." That’s what a partner at a $20B+ private equity firm said after using BlueFlame’s AI.

We love hearing how BlueFlame AI is helping our clients reclaim time to do what they love. Set up a personalized demo with our team to learn more.

What's Ripe

CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV) 7.6%

  • CRWV up 7.6% after the company announced that it has a $6.3 billion computing deal with Nvidia.

  • The chip maker is obligated to purchase any unsold cloud-computing capacity through April 13, 2032.

Webtoon Entertainment (WBTN) 5.1%

  • WBTN soared nearly 60% after hours after the company announced a partnership with Disney to create a new digital comics platform.

  • The new platform will consolidate more than 35,000 comics from Marvel, Star Wars, Disney, Pixar, and 20th Century Studios into a single digital service with one subscription.

  • Disney also plans to acquire a 2% equity in the company.

What's Rotten

Alaska Air Group Inc. (ALK) 6.7%

  • ALK declined 6.69% after the carrier said it expects third-quarter earnings to come in at the low end of its guidance.

  • Profits are affected by higher fuel costs and operational challenges.

Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN) 2.4%

  • TXN declined 2.4% in Monday’s trading after China had launched an anti-dumping case for certain U.S.-made analog chips.

  • Peer company Analog Devices also dipped 0.1% over the weekend news.

🧠 Technical Trip

Q&A Interview with JPMorgan

👉 Want 1-on-1 recruiting help from JPMorgan bankers & 2,000+ top mentors? Apply to WSO Academy

🦈 Deal Dispatch

M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

In Town X, 64% of the population are employed, and 48% of the population are employed males. What percent of the employed people in Town X are females?

Answer: 25%

Today

The price of lunch for 15 people was $207.00, including a 15% gratuity for service. What was he average price per person, excluding the gratuity?

❝

Lower costs are the handmaiden of higher returns.

John Bogle

How Would You Rate Today's Peel?


Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mitchell, Colin & Patrick