The AI construction bill got funded Thursday night, core CPI ran hot
Friday morning. ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏
 ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏
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 ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏
 ͏  ͏  ͏



 

Oracle’s cloud grew 121%, crude went triple-digit, and the Fed still
says maybe — your Saturday ledger review.

[Morning Watchlist]
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September 12, 2026  •  Saturday Edition

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A Quick Note From Behind the Markets

ORACLE SAID 121%. THE FED STILL SAYS MAYBE.
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The week’s ledger, graded out loud — four stops on the tour.
 •  8 min read

 
It’s Saturday morning, and the market crammed five days of news into
four. Labor Day Monday, then a sprint: oil through $100 a barrel, two
inflation reports running warm, a brand-new list of banned goods at
the border, and the priciest iPhone lineup ever wheeled onto a stage.

Four stops on the tour. Let’s get into it.

 

1)
The Barrel Went Triple-Digit

The loud story first. Tuesday the Dow gave up about 600 points as the
Gulf escalated. Wednesday morning Brent crude pushed through $100.
Thursday it kept going — Brent at $105.37, up another 3.6%, WTI at
$100.10 — after Iranian missiles targeted a U.S. warship, five
Iranian tankers were destroyed, and Houthi strikes forced Saudi Arabia
to idle facilities in its south. By Friday morning the market was
exhaling: WTI back near $99, Brent under $104, both down more than 3%.
Still war prices, just less fevered. We spent the week deliberately
placing calls around that fire, not in it.

Today’s Stock

Magnolia Oil & Gas (MGY) Buy

Thursday’s fresh Buy, flagged at Tuesday’s close of $27.42 after
it rose 2.3% into a 600-point Dow drop. Eagle Ford barrels reprice
with every Gulf headline while never seeing a strait or a war-risk
premium. Friday morning’s 3% give-back is the honest reminder we
printed with the call: de-escalation is the cheerful way to lose this
one, and we’d take that trade. Still Buy.

DARLING INGREDIENTS (DAR) — Monday’s Buy at $65.75 closed
Wednesday at $67.51, up nearly 3%, with the record diesel market it
sells into still setting records. Paid at both ends of the truck
route, and the route got longer this week. _Still Buy._

MURPHY USA (MUSA) — here’s a grade we promised. The named aisle
risk arrived Tuesday night: Casey’s beat estimates by 65 cents and
fell roughly 10% anyway, because 40-times-earnings priced for
perfection has no room for merely good. Murphy USA closed Wednesday at
$517.46 — ABOVE our $511 flag — while its glamorous neighbor got
marked down. The 15.6-times seatbelt did exactly what we bought it
for. _Still Buy._

ROYAL GOLD (RGLD) — Thursday’s other fresh Buy, flagged at
$261.37, closed Wednesday at $262.54, right at the flag. Gold held
near $4,383 into Friday, giving up almost nothing in a week that
pushed Treasury yields to nearly three-year highs, and about $18
billion flowed into gold ETFs in August — the second-largest monthly
inflow on record. The songwriter collects either way, and with $100
oil inflating every miner’s diesel bill we like the seat with no
fuel surcharge more each day. _Still Buy._

Read the full oil-week review →
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2)
The Referees Ruled Against Our Reasoning — and For Our Calls

Last Saturday we promised to grade the Robert Half sell out loud once
the jobs referee spoke. He spoke. Our August 30th Sell near $39.50
named its own kill switch in writing: a payroll rebound, because
staffing operating leverage is vicious on the way up. The August jobs
report delivered exactly that — 162,000 JOBS against roughly 56,000
expected. By the strict letter of our thesis, we should have been
wrong.

Instead, Robert Half fell from $42.90 to $38.48 by Wednesday afternoon
— a slide of roughly 10%, finally below our flag. Strong jobs
stopped being good news: hot labor plus hot inflation put a Fed hike
back near the front of the odds, and a staffing company at 35 times
trailing earnings, paying a dividend that costs twice its profits,
deflates fast when the discount rate rises. Right call, partial credit
on the reasoning. _Sell stands._

Today’s Stock

M/I Homes (MHO) Sell

The same referee graded our exit. We flipped that Buy to Sell on
September 3rd near $146, refusing to bet on a jobs-report rescue. The
rescue never came — hot payrolls, fresh yield highs — and the
stock traded at $141.34 Wednesday, about 3% below our exit. Sold, and
still sleeping fine.

Then the inflation referees spoke back to back. Thursday, August
producer prices rose 0.4% on the month with the annual rate jumping to
5.4% FROM 4.8%. Friday, consumer prices rose 0.4% in line with
forecasts, annual rate 3.4% — but core CPI ran 0.3%, a tenth hotter
than expected. Not the cooling that calls off a hike. Futures held
next week’s hike odds near 70%, up from the coin flip that started
the week.

Which frames the rest of the rate shelf. TRADEWEB (TW), Sunday’s Buy
at $106, closed Wednesday at $102.94 — the argument it hosts got
louder all week and now runs into a live Fed decision; record August
volumes are already in hand. _Still Buy._ FRONTDOOR (FTDR) sat right
at our $81 flag with the 30-year mortgage at 6.85% freezing its market
into place. _Still Buy._ And COSTCO (COST), Monday’s
Sell-into-strength near $930, traded at $903 Thursday — the
deflating multiple deflating on schedule. _Sell stands, for holders._

See every grade in full →
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3)
Bans, Bureaus, and the Border

Tuesday at 12:01 a.m., Canada’s counter-tariffs went live.
Wednesday, Washington answered with something blunter: an outright
import ban on Canadian motorcycles, dairy, and most alcohol, effective
September 29. The trade war stopped being a pricing story and became a
seating chart.

Today’s Stock

Embraer (EMBJ) Buy

Wednesday’s Buy at $73.81 on exactly that logic: the Brazilian
planemaker already sits inside the room — tariff-exempt since
February, assembling jets in Florida for fifteen years — while Trump
threatens Bombardier’s U.S. access by tweet. Closed Wednesday at
$74.33, $74.70 Thursday morning. The record $34.5 billion backlog is
the thesis; the ban stays a free option.

POLARIS (PII) — Thursday’s Watch near $61 closed Wednesday at
$59.26, down about 3%. Notice what the market did: handed the
home-field powersports maker a protected market and sold the stock
anyway, because 7% loan rates and record pump prices hang over every
big-ticket toy. That’s precisely why we asked to be paid to wait.
The mid-$50s entrance is getting closer without us lifting a finger.
_Still Watch._

TRANSUNION (TRU) — Tuesday’s Watch at $79 drifted to $77.05
Wednesday. Director Pulte’s “overcharging Americans” glare
hasn’t resolved into a rule, a retraction, or a washout — the
referee is still swinging, so we’re still outside the ring. Entrance
unchanged: bi-merge resolved or shelved, or a washout toward $63.
_Still Watch._

Read the border-ban notes →
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4)
The Exams Came Back — Oracle, Kroger, and the China Cabinet

Start with the one the whole AI aisle was bracing for. Thursday night
Oracle answered the funding question: cloud infrastructure revenue of
$7.4 BILLION, UP 121%, ahead of the roughly $7.19 billion expected,
with total revenue of $19.3 billion up 30%. The stock jumped in
extended trading. The construction bill is still getting paid — no
blink, no retrench — and every building in that backlog still needs
its gray box. POWELL INDUSTRIES (POWL), Sunday’s Buy at $175, had
already climbed 3% to $180.26 by Wednesday and traded at $176.88
Thursday midday. The verdict came in for the thesis. _Still Buy._

Friday morning brought the other half of the food-inflation
referendum. Kroger reported identical sales excluding fuel of just
+0.2%, against +3.4% a year ago, and cut full-year comp guidance to
0.2–0.8%. Read that next to BJ’s +3.1% ex-gas comps and record 8.5
million members: the shoppers aren’t disappearing, they’re walking
out of the supermarket and paying the club’s cover charge instead.

Today’s Stock

BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ) Buy

The honesty item: closed Wednesday at $88.51, down almost 5% from our
$93 flag — the worst of the week’s Buys. But Friday’s evidence
ran our way, not against us. Still Buy.

Apple’s show happened Wednesday, and the premise we paired two
stocks to was confirmed on stage: iPhone 18 Pro at $1,199, Pro Max at
$1,299, and a folding iPhone expected between roughly $2,100 and
$2,300 — the priciest lineup in company history, as advertised.
CIRRUS LOGIC (CRUS) closed Wednesday at $110.72, a touch above our
$109.51 flag; the in-housing scare didn’t materialize. _Still Buy._
ASSURANT (AIZ) closed at $280.44 and ticked to $282.76 Thursday, about
2% below our flag — the pricier the china, the more the bubble wrap
costs. _Still Buy._

GAMESTOP (GME), graded as promised. Tuesday night’s report showed
real discipline: record second-quarter operating income of $160.2
million, full-year EBITDA guidance raised past $650 million, $1.4
billion of convertible debt retired, collectibles up 57%. The stock
jumped to $19.91 — up 8% from our flag. And we still didn’t move,
because the entrance we named — the $2 billion buyback actually
firing — stayed silent again. A discount you can’t collect isn’t
a discount, even when it’s rallying. _Still Watch._

The rest of the patient shelf, quickly. LULULEMON (LULU) set a fresh
52-week low Thursday at $97.55 — the knife we refused to catch at
$100 is still falling. _Still Watch._ OKTA (OKTA) traded at $174.90,
up about 1% from our flag; the $140s entrance stands. _Still Watch._
AFLAC (AFL) slipped to $114.19, down about 2.6%, drifting toward the
$110 entrance with the Bank of Japan days away. _Still Watch._ TD
SYNNEX (SNX) eased about 2% to $258.30 ahead of its September 24
report. _Still Buy._ TANGER (SKT) held at $37.82. _Still Buy._

Read every ledger note →
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Before You Go

The scoreboard. Nineteen calls this week — twelve Buys, six Watches,
one Sell. GameStop up 8% (a Watch we didn’t chase), Powell up 3%,
Darling up 3%, Murphy USA and Embraer up about 1%. Paying tuition:
BJ’s down 5%, Tradeweb down 3%, TD SYNNEX and Assurant down about
2%. The Sells earned their keep: Costco is 3% below our flag, and
Robert Half — after a 10% slide the week its own wrong-if scenario
came true — finally sits below ours too.

And the discipline column, which never shows on a brokerage statement:
six Watches, zero forced entrances. Refusing Lululemon at $100 looked
smarter at Thursday’s new low. Declining GameStop’s 8% pop until
the buyback bell rings. Letting Polaris drift toward the price we
asked for instead of paying the one on offer.

Your Monday checklist, in order. First, the main event: the Fed
decides Tuesday and Wednesday with hike odds near 70% going in.
Second, the Bank of Japan right behind it Thursday and Friday —
that’s Aflac’s entrance bell, or it isn’t. Third, any first
public words from Lululemon’s new boss. Fourth, whether crude’s
Friday exhale becomes a trend — that grades Magnolia and Darling
from here.

Read this morning’s full issue →
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