• Bonds: Treasury yields popped as investors fretted about rising inflation and sky-high government debt (more on that later).
• Stocks: Rising bond yields and sinking hopes for peace in the Middle East took a toll on indexes today, sparking a major selloff in chip stocks.
• Commodities: Crude prices continued to inch higher as President Trump’s threats to expand the fighting to Oman reverberated across the market, while gold took a beating from higher bond yields.

Investing

Morning Brew Inc.

Redditors have a long tradition of staking their accounts on very confident investment predictions. Yesterday, another brave soul stepped up on r/WallStreetBets: “I will delete my account if Nike stock closes below $40 today. News flash: won’t happen.”

News flash: It did. Nike closed at $39.09, its lowest level in 12 years and roughly 78% below its record high in 2021. “It is 4pm, OP has now been summarily executed permbanned, thanks for playing,” a forum moderator wrote.

Nike keeps stumbling

Nike shares are down 37.11% this year as investors lose patience with CEO Elliott Hill’s turnaround plan.

The latest curveball came yesterday, when David Denton officially took over as CFO. Denton has plenty of experience running the finances of big companies, but his recent resume includes Pfizer and CVS Health—not exactly sneakerheads. Nike says he’ll help sharpen execution and capital allocation.

Denton has his work cut out for him. Nike’s recent quarters have been weak, and some of its biggest brands remain under pressure. Management expects sportswear and Jordan streetwear—which together account for roughly half of the company’s revenue—to stay negative this fiscal year, with improvement only expected in the second half.

Then there’s China, Nike’s third-largest market, which accounted for 12.6% of revenue in fiscal 2026—down from 19% in 2020. Nike has lost market share there every year since 2020 as domestic rivals like Anta and Li-Ning gained ground, with Nike’s share of China’s sportswear market falling from 27% in 2020 to just 16% in 2025—and there’s no sign of the company’s decline stopping anytime soon.

Room to run

Some analysts think Nike’s ugly numbers are masking early progress.

Jefferies has pointed to improving momentum in Nike’s performance categories, while weakness in sportswear and Jordan is at least beginning to stabilize. Bernstein is similarly optimistic: While Wall Street expects Nike’s China margins to remain flat next year, Bernstein sees them climbing two percentage points to 24%, helped by Nike cutting back on discounting and taking more control of online sales. Bernstein still rates Nike at Outperform with a $68 price target, though that’s down from $72.

Nike doesn’t need everything to suddenly start working: With shares sitting at a 12-year low, investors just need evidence that the bleeding is slowing. And for whatever it’s worth, the stock rose 2.49% today to bring it back above $40—but unfortunately for one Reddit user, it was too little, too late.—SY

      

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Stocks

🟢 What’s up

• Amylyx Pharmaceuticals surged 63.84% on positive late-stage trial results for a treatment aimed at patients who develop low blood sugar after weight loss surgery.
• Natural gas company UGI Corporation jumped 9.44% on a $9 billion takeover bid from KKR.
• Duolingo climbed 7.28% following a D.A. Davidson upgrade that said the company is nearing a turning point in user growth and monetization.
• Targa Resources gained 7.14% on record second-quarter EBITDA and Permian volumes, with full-year results tracking near the top end of guidance.
• Xos soared 112.44% after winning a US Air Force prototype contract, marking its first move into defense.

🔴 What’s down

• Baidu tumbled 12.73% after second-quarter profit and revenue fell while the company continued ramping up AI spending.
• Klarna slipped 22.89% after both its CFO and CMO announced they plan to leave in early 2027.
• Contract manufacturer Fabrinet dropped 19.45% despite strong earnings and guidance, with investors focusing on concerns around parts of its data center business.
• Carvana fell 7.27% following stock sales by two company directors.
• CoreWeave slipped 12.1% and Nebius declined 7.6% as concerns over heavy AI infrastructure spending continued to weigh on neocloud stocks.
• Reddit sank 3.78% during its first day of trading on the S&P 500.

Warning of the day

Nobody invests intelligently at 2am

Morning Brew Inc, Photos: Adobe Stock

Congratulations degenerates, you’re about to get a bunch of new opportunities to wager your money in the markets.

First, Nasdaq announced it’s planning to allow investors to trade for 23 hours a day beginning on December 6. Soon we’ll get the extended session from 4am to 9:30am ET, the regular trading session from 9:30am to 4pm ET, then the after-hours session from 4pm to 8pm ET, and finally the new overnight session from 9pm to 4am ET. For those keeping track, that gives you from 8pm to 9pm every night to catch some shuteye in between trades.

We also got news from ground zero for market degeneracy—aka, Kalshi. The prediction market plans to roll out new “perps,” or perpetual futures contracts, that are tied to the MerQube US Large Cap Index. It’s Kalshi’s first attempt to offer customers perps linked to an equity index, though this is just its latest effort to push into the broader financial ecosystem: The platform also applied for perps connected to gold, silver, and platinum futures back in July.

To be clear, Nasdaq’s new trading hours still need SEC approval—but considering the regulator is letting the NYSE experiment with a 22-hour trading day, its consent is all but assured. And Kalshi will require clearance from the CFTC before it can offer perps linked to equity indexes—but given the CFTC’s approval of Kalshi’s crypto perps back in May, it seems likely that the prediction market will get the green light.

Finance is always evolving, but with all these new opportunities to risk your money, the stock market is starting to feel more like a casino with every passing day.—MR

Reader Poll

Fixed income

Morning Brew Inc

Long-term bond yields allow us to gauge how investors feel about the economy—and right now, they’re not exactly painting a reassuring picture.

Bonds are getting hit with a serious selloff: The 30-year Treasury yield touched 5.339% today, its highest level since 2007. You don’t need to be a credit expert to know that when anything is being compared to 2007, it’s not a compliment. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield hit 4.75% today, a level it hasn’t reached in 19 months.

The bond carnage is going global, too. Borrowing costs in France, Germany, Japan, and the UK are all reaching multi-year highs, with some hitting the highest levels in decades.

Yielding some bad news

Fears of reigniting inflation are partly to blame for the mass selling (remember, bond yields rise as bond prices fall). As conflict in the Middle East intensifies once again, oil prices are rising, which investors are wagering will kick off another round of price acceleration.

The short-term fears are also bringing long-standing concerns to the surface, including skepticism about the growing government deficit: The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the US budget deficit this fiscal year will be $200 billion larger than previously expected. There’s also been a surge of new corporate debt issued by hyperscalers to fund their AI buildouts, which investors may prefer over Treasurys, diminishing demand for government notes.

Even the good news isn’t good enough to stop the bond market mayhem. Recent macro data, including a cool inflation report and surprisingly bad jobs numbers last week, suggested the Fed may not hike rates in September, which should have driven yields lower. Instead, the selloff has only accelerated over the last few days as investors fret about what tomorrow’s FOMC meeting minutes will reveal about Kevin Warsh’s plans for interest rates.

What does this mean for stocks?

While equities have defied hurdle after hurdle over the past year, the boring old bond market might be what finally breaks up the party.

Higher yields tend to be a bane for stocks for a few reasons. The yields investors can earn from reliable fixed income can tempt them to take money out of stocks and put it into bonds. Higher bond yields can also hike the cost of loans, making it harder for regular people to borrow for cars or homes, and raise expenses for businesses—particularly in growth sectors like tech, where higher borrowing costs can be extremely detrimental.

Yet even as stocks sold off today, many investors are clinging to the one thing that’s powered the market higher through turbulence over the past six months: earnings.

“Despite higher long-term yields and a more fragile U.S. fiscal situation, equity investors are largely ignoring the issue for now,” explained Ameriprise Chief Market Strategist Anthony Saglimbene in a note. “That’s because S&P 500 earnings expectations continue to reflect a very strong profit backdrop.”

And yet: The bond vigilantes taking over the market may not allow themselves to be ignored for much longer.—LB

      

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News

• Costco will start selling medicare plans, which feels like a plotline from Idiocracy.
• ABC is suing the FCC, arguing the government is impeding free speech by trying to challenge its broadcast license.
• Here’s how Wall Street realized things were amiss at Situational Awareness—and took advantage.
• The high-stakes child safety trial that could cost Meta over $1 trillion kicks off today.
• Spirit Airlines sold all of its data to Google to train its AI models.
• CEOs accused of misconduct keep getting second chances from Wall Street.

Calendar

Economic reports: In a quiet week like this, even a relatively low-key bit of data like the Fed’s minutes from last month’s FOMC meeting can move the market. Investors are particularly interested in central bankers’ discussions about interest rates, since new Fed head Kevin Warsh is keeping mum.

Earnings announcements: All eyes are on retail this week, and it’s no different tomorrow thanks to reports from Target, Lowe’s, and TJX Companies.

Everything else: US and Canadian officials are deep in discussion ahead of tomorrow’s trade deadline, but if they can’t reach a deal, 50% tariffs will take effect on $20 billion worth of imported Canadian products beginning just after midnight.

recs

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