• Stocks: Indexes tumbled on a stronger-than-expected jobs report (more on that later), with investors fretting that it opens the door to an interest rate hike later this month.
• Everything else: Gold and bitcoin both fell, though bitcoin at least capped off its third winning week in a row. Bond yields rose across the board, with the 2-year Treasury yield climbing to its highest level since January 2025.
• Reminder: US markets are closed for Labor Day on Monday, and we’ve got the day off as well. Have a great long weekend, and we’ll see you on Tuesday!

IPOs

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Oura

If you’ve ever had the displeasure of finding yourself in the vicinity of an Equinox, you may have noticed everyone wearing thick, metallic rings.

Oura rings, which track everything from users’ sleep to stress levels using high-tech sensors, have exploded in popularity over the past few years as the Silicon Valley crowd has vowed to live forever. Now, Oura is trying to turn all that data on your REM patterns into a public market debut, filing its IPO paperwork with the SEC yesterday.

In the filing, the company revealed that its revenue surged higher than your cortisol levels at your in-laws’ house. In the nine months that ended June 30, revenue jumped 74% to $1.21 billion. Strong sales helped the company reach profitability, earning $60.8 million during that period—far above the $1.6 million it earned in the same period last year.

Oura has a lot going for it: The company has found its customer base to be sticky, with subscription fees—on top of a $349+ original price tag—providing steady recurring revenue. When Oura IPOs, its valuation is expected to surpass the $11 billion it raised in its last fundraising round, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Wellness is doing pretty well

Oura’s prospective debut is the latest sign that a niche corner of the business world—wellness products—is now a behemoth industry. The wellness economy is currently worth $6.8 trillion globally, and is expected to reach $9.8 trillion by 2029, according to the Global Wellness Institute.

But there’s a flip side: Consumer health products are inherently trendy, and fads can go out of style quickly. Another risk is competition, a factor that Oura acknowledged in its filing. One of its most formidable foes in the wearable wellness tracker space is Apple, whose Apple Watch tracks many of the same biometrics as the Oura ring.

Finding a pulse: If the IPO market were wearing a smart ring, it would report that the health of public offerings is bouncing back after taking a summer breather. After a few years of very little IPO activity due to high interest rates, a slew of huge tech IPOs has reinvigorated the once-stalled pipeline.

But good timing won’t be enough to propel Oura’s debut—it will have to stand the test of time, too.—LB

      

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Stocks

🟢 What’s up

• AMC Entertainment climbed 3.94% after CEO Adam Aron criticized Robinhood’s AMC stock tokens as “contemptible, outrageous, disgusting, detestable, inexcusable, vile.”
• Quanex Building Products jumped 22.16% on strong quarterly results.
• Gun maker Smith & Wesson popped 5.05% thanks to an earnings and revenue beat.
• Samsara rallied 3.79% on a full-year revenue outlook that came in above Wall Street estimates.

🔴 What’s down

• Tesla fell 5.92% after federal regulators opened an investigation into whether its Cybercab complies with US safety standards.
• Fair Isaac fell 16.71% as regulators weighed changes to mortgage credit checks that could reduce demand for its FICO scores.
• Lululemon tumbled 17.38% on disappointing quarterly results and a cut to its full-year outlook.
• Guidewire Software sank 19.93% despite beating quarterly expectations, as the results failed to impress investors following the stock’s recent rally.
• The Trade Desk declined 4.37% on plans to cut 15% of its workforce as part of a broader restructuring.
• Adobe slipped 6.73% following the appointment of Anil Chakravarthy as its next CEO.
• Zscaler dropped 4.5% despite an earnings beat, as strong results failed to satisfy elevated investor expectations.

Stat of the day

Forget gas prices—we’ve got a bigger problem

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Zhang Fengguo/Getty Images, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Labor Day road trippers may be sweating over $5-per-gallon pain at the pump, but that’s nothing compared to a bigger threat about to blindside our wallets: Diesel prices hit a record high of $5.85 per gallon today, up over 55% since the US war with Iran started.

Why it matters: Although gasoline may run the average car, diesel runs the entire economy. Diesel keeps farm equipment running, factories humming, and truckers delivering a mountain of Amazon packages to your door. Its presence in every industry means that when diesel prices rise, it’s the tide that lifts all prices. This is stoking a fresh wave of inflation fears far more worrisome than your expensive (but worth it) end-of-summer drive to the beach.

About 8% of the diesel needed to sate global demand of 28 million barrels per day has run dry, according to Lipow Oil Associates. The Middle East isn’t where the shortage ends, either: Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries forced Russia to ban refined fuel exports until the end of September.

To make up for it, US refineries have cranked up production and are frankly having a field day. The “crack spread,” aka the price gap between crude and refined products, recently reached a record high of $102 per barrel—five times the typical margin. That helped companies like Marathon and Valero post blowout Q2 profits, with some proceeds passed on to shareholders after the two disbursed a collective $5 billion through buybacks and dividends.

Even if the Iran conflict were to miraculously end tomorrow, analysts warn that the diesel market is primed to stay tight into next year. That fuel squeeze could trickle down into just about everything you add to your cart, from groceries to that questionable Depop hoodie you definitely didn’t need. Buyer beware.—JD

Economy

Francis Scialabba

If you feel like you’ve spent the past few months firing resumes into the void, today’s jobs report may have brought some encouraging news:

• Employers added 162,000 jobs in August, nearly triple the roughly 53,000 that economists expected.
• The unemployment rate held at 4.1%, a level economists generally consider healthy.
• The labor force participation rate rose to 61.6%, up from 61.4% in July and the first improvement in almost a year.
• Previous months were revised upward as well: July went from an initially reported loss of 23,000 jobs to a gain of 21,000.

A big chunk of those new jobs came from restaurants and bars, which added 59,000 workers, followed by local government education, which added another 42,000. Construction, manufacturing, and health care also added workers, while the information sector shed jobs.

Underneath the numbers

That’s a pretty convincing comeback for a labor market that looked shaky just a month ago. So why doesn’t it feel that way for a lot of Americans?

Part of the answer comes down to the age-old question of quantity versus quality. The headline jobs numbers are very good at telling us how many people are working, but not so great at telling us whether those workers are earning enough money to afford their lifestyles.

Wage growth offers a clue about why Americans are still finding it difficult to get by: Average hourly earnings rose 3.1% from a year ago in August, the slowest pace since 2021. Meanwhile, the latest available inflation reading showed consumer prices rising 3.4% annually in July.

A broader measure from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity highlights another weakness hidden by the headline unemployment rate: Ludwig’s “True Rate of Unemployment” also counts people involuntarily stuck in part-time work or earning less than $26,000 a year. By that measure, 24.9% of workers were “functionally unemployed” in July, the fourth straight monthly increase.

To be clear, that figure isn’t directly comparable with the official unemployment rate because it uses a much broader definition, but it still helps paint a pretty gloomy picture.

Warsh watch

For the Fed, today’s job report strengthens the case for higher rates.

With unemployment low and hiring stronger than expected, policymakers have more room to focus on inflation—which, as Kevin Warsh stressed at Jackson Hole, remains above the Fed’s 2% target. That’s why markets pushed the odds of a September rate hike to 58.4%, up from around 50% before the jobs report, according to the CME Fedwatch tool.

President Trump, however, wants the US to have “the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post today. “LOWER THE RATE OR I’LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT.”

Markets will be watching the August CPI data that arrives next week, giving the Fed one last major read on inflation before its September meeting.—SY

      

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News

• Some of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world are planning to slash their US Treasury holdings.
• The THC drink industry is booming, but a potential congressional ban is threatening to kill the high.
• Here’s how one strategist thinks you should play it if the Democrats sweep the midterm elections.
• It’s not just oil: Corn and soybean prices are popping off right now.
• OpenAI touts that it has reached AGI—here’s what that actually means.
• Starbucks changed its chai formula, and fans are freaking out.

Calendar

Monday: US markets are closed for Labor Day, and we’ve got the day off!

Tuesday: It’s slim pickings on the earnings front this week, with just United Natural Foods and Casey’s General Stores kicking things off. As for economic reports, keep an eye out for the August NFIB small business optimism survey, as well as the New York Fed’s one-year inflation expectations.

Wednesday: Earnings pick up the pace just a bit, with quarterly numbers from SailPoint, Chewy, AeroVironment, and American Eagle, as well as the inaugural report from Jersey Mike’s.

Thursday: August PPI will take center stage, though there are a bunch of lesser reports worth watching, including existing home sales, July wholesale trade sales, and initial jobless claims. Macy’s, Oracle, and Adobe headline the earnings report lineup.

Friday: After a surprising BLS jobs report, all eyes will be on the August CPI report. It’s the final inflation reading ahead of the Fed’s September FOMC meeting, and the last piece of the puzzle before the central bank makes its next decision about interest rates. The September University of Michigan survey should catch some attention as well, and the only company reporting numbers is Kroger.

recs

📈 When a stock is added to the S&P 500, shares tend to pop. Here are the eight companies that could join the index ahead of its quarterly rebalancing.

🧮 Classic retirement advice assumes you’ll need to withdraw money for about 30 years, but if you plan to work longer and retire later, the math changes dramatically.

💪 High dividend yields are tempting, but could be risky. These 10 stocks balance strong yields with management teams dedicated to keeping payouts flowing.

⚖️ The East India Company was the most powerful organization in the world before the British government dismantled it. Here’s how the US could do the same thing to Big Tech.

🧠 Bonds used to be “set it and forget it” investments. Rising yields have changed all that, so here’s how to adjust your portfolio accordingly.

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