• Stocks: Traders are waiting to hear more about President Trump’s plan to economically isolate Iran—details they’ll hope to get during Scott Bessent’s press conference next Monday. In the meantime, investors were content to let indexes end a losing week on a high note.
• Crypto: Bitcoin continued to climb, rising more than 22% in the last week alone—its biggest weekly gain in three years.
• Bonds: Longer-dated Treasury yields kept rising after Scott Bessent’s intervention announcement flopped. Traders searching for an alternative are increasingly turning to gold, which helped the hot commodity wrap up a third straight weekly gain today (more on that below).

Commodities

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

A rough patch for US Treasurys has a silver lining: It might kick off a golden era for gold.

Today, gold rose 2.36%, capping off an extended winning streak this week and reversing bullion’s slump in Q2, which was its worst quarter since 2013.

Gold vs the greenback

Gold’s recent bump isn’t due to surging demand for rings this wedding season. The debasement trade is making a comeback—aka, traders are betting that the US dollar will get weaker. The dollar losing value is a boon for gold because the commodity is priced in US dollars, which means it makes gold cheaper for investors buying with other currencies, boosting global demand for the metal.

Plus, in an effort to stymie the bond selloff carnage, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US Treasury would double its buyback program for bonds that have durations between 10 and 30 years. This essentially boosted the price of Treasurys, creating a ceiling for just how much higher yields could rise. Yields fell lower and the dollar weakened, kicking off a resurgence of demand for gold.

Bullion’s bull run

Analysts forecast a rocky road ahead for the metal, but are confident it will continue to climb out of its Q2 rut.

UBS maintained its forecast that gold will hit $4,600 per ounce by the end of this year, but raised its forecast for year-end 2027 to $5,400 per ounce—$200 per ounce higher than the strategists predicted back in June. Spot bullion is currently trading around $4,679.

“This higher forecast reflects our view that disinflation could become a more prominent market theme next year,” wrote UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo. “Our revised projections at the longer end of the forecast horizon also suggest that pullbacks should be viewed as buying opportunities.”

UBS isn’t the only bullion bull on Wall Street. Morgan Stanley released a new gold forecast yesterday after the metal hit its Q4 forecast of $4,450 per ounce ahead of schedule. Now, the bank sees gold climbing to $5,000 per ounce by the end of next year on the back of heavy central bank buying, strong ETF inflows, and a steepening yield curve.

Digging for profits: Even if you’re not all-in on the real thing, gold mining stocks could actually be a better way to add exposure to your portfolio, BCA Research argued in a recent note. Unlike gold itself, companies mining the precious metal have fixed operational costs and see huge profit margins when its price pops off.

So if your plan was to frantically stock up on gold bars from Costco, maybe put some of those down before security starts looking at you funny.—LB

      

From The Crew

Every founder faces a moment they weren’t prepared for. The pivot that wasn’t working. The investor who walked. The hire that broke the culture. Founder Brew exists for those moments. Each issue brings the real decisions, the trade-offs, and the hard lessons from builders who’ve been there.

Whether you’re scaling, fundraising, or just figuring out what comes next, this is the newsletter for you. Subscribe today.

Stocks

🟢 What’s up

• Tesla climbed 5.14% after announcing plans to unveil its electric semi truck in Europe next month.
• BJ’s Wholesale Club jumped 5.94% on an earnings beat and a higher full-year outlook.
• Ross Stores surged 4.39% thanks to stronger-than-expected quarterly results and an upbeat third-quarter earnings forecast.
• O-I Glass gained 12.56% following a Citi upgrade that argued the stock’s recent selloff had gone too far.
• Moderna rebounded 8.86% as enthusiasm returned for its experimental cancer vaccine following yesterday’s profit-taking.
• Werewolf Therapeutics soared 102.57% on a merger with Ambros Therapeutics and a $150 million private investment.

🔴 What’s down

• Boston Beer fell 2.21% on news that CFO Diego Reynoso will leave the company next month.
• Marvell Technology slipped 5.57% as investors digested a deal allowing Google to acquire up to 58.97 million shares, worth roughly $12 billion.
• Bitcoin miner Cipher Digital sank 8.40% despite a broader crypto rally, with investors focused on its costly data center expansion and $6 billion debt load.
• Electronic components maker OSI Systems dropped 5.21% following mixed quarterly results and a fiscal 2027 sales forecast that fell short of Wall Street estimates.

Stock of the day

Dining out is a good investment

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock

The jalapeños have salmonella, the blueberries have E. coli, and the fruit bars have glass in them—suddenly lettuce that causes explosive diarrhea doesn’t sound so bad. Wall Street agrees: A series of food safety scares that have turned investors’ stomachs for restaurant stocks may yield some serious rewards for those who stuck around.

Shares of Chipotle tumbled 10% in a single day earlier this month when it was linked to a salmonella outbreak, while Yum! Brands—parent company of Taco Bell—sank nearly 9% when the restaurant was connected to the cyclospora outbreak. Neither stock has fully recovered, but both companies reported strong earnings in spite of the tummy issues their products were causing customers. Analysts have noticed the split between weaker shares and stronger earnings, highlighting how both companies suddenly seem like solid value picks.

Value is on the menu elsewhere in the restaurant industry. Sit-down chains like Cheesecake Factory, Texas Roadhouse, and Chili’s parent Brinker International have enjoyed startlingly strong returns in 2026, with Cheesecake Factory the clear winner, soaring 124.50% this year alone. The chains are benefitting from their low valuations heading into the new year, combined with consumers’ search for more bang for their buck.

In a world where fast food chains are no longer the affordable option, it makes sense to splurge on that third cheesecake. It certainly made sense to invest in sit-down stocks when they were cheap, so maybe it’s time to take a second look at the companies hurt by food safety scares.—MR

Smart money

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

You’ve probably heard of Jane Street, the famously secretive trading firm that makes an absurd amount of money. Last year, it pulled in a record $39.6 billion in trading revenue, which works out to roughly $2.68 million per employee.

But those workers might want to skip the annual new Ferrari and the autumn yacht shopping: Jane Street posted a roughly $15 billion trading loss in July, its first losing month in a decade, after getting caught on the wrong side of Asian equity trades and the collapse of Situational Awareness.

While that sounds catastrophic, the firm has generated more than $40 billion in net trading revenue so far this year even after the loss—already more than it made in all of last year.

The AI unwind

It’s not just Jane Street. In July, hedge funds at large had their worst month relative to the S&P 500 in 20 years after the AI trade suddenly reversed, according to Goldman Sachs.

Many funds had piled into the same semiconductors, hyperscalers, and other AI-linked stocks. When those names sold off, managers rushed to cut exposure and reduce risk, triggering one of the biggest “de-grossing” episodes of the past decade.

The most concentrated funds got hit hardest. Situational Awareness, for example, had 56% of its portfolio tied up in Micron and Sandisk before the stocks fell 24% and 43%, respectively, in July—helping trigger the leveraged fund’s near-collapse.

Still, hedge funds haven’t exactly had a terrible year: They were up about 10% through Aug. 19.

Back to basics

After getting burned by crowded AI bets, you might expect hedge funds to back away from the trade.

But Goldman data shows that nine of the 10 most popular stocks among hedge funds are still megacap tech names, with Visa the lone exception. Amazon remains the most widely held stock for the 11th straight quarter, while names including SpaceX, Snowflake, and Compass have also climbed onto managers’ shopping lists.

That said, the AI trade is starting to change. “Smart money” has been moving away from some of the memory-chip names that dominated earlier in the year and spreading bets across a wider group of companies. Net tilts toward healthcare, financials, and energy have climbed to their highest levels in a decade, with Axsome Therapeutics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Capital One among the names gaining favor.

For a group that notoriously employs some of the smartest people on Wall Street, July served up a surprisingly simple lesson: Diversify, diversify, diversify.—SY

      

News

• SPACs are making a big comeback—for better or for worse.
• Check out the five reasons experts think the stock market is headed for a 10% correction this fall.
• US business activity in August grew at the fastest pace since 2022.
• Here are six AI hardware plays analysts recommend holding for the rest of the year.
• Great results from a melanoma vaccine trial lifted the entire biotech sector this week—here are two stocks to buy and two to avoid within the sector right now.
• There’s one simple strategy that improves your odds of getting hired—and everyone can do it.

Calendar

Tuesday: Things start ramping up with the US August Conference Board consumer confidence index, the July new home sales report, and earnings from Intuit, Zoom, Box, and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Wednesday: Brace yourselves for a doozy of a day. On the economic front, all eyes will be on the July PCE report—and over in earnings land, the spotlight will be squarely on Nvidia.

Thursday: Earnings from Marvell, TD Bank, Autodesk, Workday, Affirm, Dollar Tree, and Best Buy keep things moving. But the highlight of the day is the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium that kicks off today and runs through Saturday: Everyone will want to hear new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s take on inflation, the labor market, and Scott Bessent’s intervention in the Treasury market.

recs

🍬 Our most-clicked link this time last week was about how Goldman Sachs wants to hook more investors with…“boomer candy.”