A Quick Note From Behind the Markets

Oracle Said 121%. The Fed Still Says Maybe.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.