☕️ Apple's M6 Mac mini jumps to $899

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

🍎 Apple's M6 Mac mini jumps to $899

🇨🇦 Canada hits back with tariffs on US goods

🌶️ OpenAI says its chip beats Nvidia's GB300

🕵️ SEC subpoenas banks over AI hedge fund

Plus: 🌍 7 macro news, 🏢 11 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• Apple raised the entry price of its Mac mini to $899 with the launch of the M6 chip, capping a climb from $599 driven by supply shortages, as shares slipped 0.34% to about $309.30.
• The base price rose from $599 to $799 in May and now to $899, with outgoing CEO Tim Cook citing constrained capacity for cutting-edge chips as demand for the Mac mini and Mac Studio outstrips supply.
• Apple set the Mac Studio at $2,499 to start and up to $18,299 fully specced, put both desktops on preorder ahead of a September 22 release, and confirmed plans to begin US Mac mini production later this year.

• Canada will retaliate against US tariffs with its own levies on more than 700 American products spanning cosmetics, dairy, wood and outdoor gear, matching Washington's measures on a roughly "dollar-for-dollar" basis.
• The Canadian tariffs, effective September 8, cover C$27.6bn in US-origin imports across industries including steel, dairy, appliances and agricultural equipment, with most rates set at 25% or 50% and some items facing a lower 15%.
• Ottawa paired the retaliation with more than C$7bn in support for affected businesses, adding to over C$20bn pledged in the past 18 months, after Washington singled out roughly 5% of Canadian exports to the US.

• OpenAI published its first benchmarks for Jalapeño, an in-house AI chip built with Broadcom, claiming it does 1.5 to 1.9 times more work per unit of electricity and answers 1.7 to 3.6 times faster than Nvidia's GB200 and GB300 systems.
• The chip targets OpenAI's real constraint, data center power, not budget, since running ChatGPT and its API continuously means every watt saved per request compounds, though OpenAI has no plans to sell Jalapeño and says it is "struggling to have enough" compute for itself.
• Jalapeño fits OpenAI's October 2025 deal with Broadcom to deploy 10 gigawatts of custom chips through 2029, but OpenAI will not replace its Nvidia GPUs, deploying Jalapeño in small volumes by end-2026 while still leaning on Nvidia and Cerebras.

• The SEC has subpoenaed Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America for details on their dealings with Situational Awareness, the AI-focused hedge fund that nearly collapsed last month after a tech sell-off.
• Regulators want insight into the fund's trades, borrowing and communications after it plunged from roughly $45 billion to around $10 billion in late July, when margin calls forced it to unwind concentrated, leveraged bets including SK Hynix and CoreWeave.
• Citadel bought those positions at a roughly 10% discount and has since shed about 80% of the associated risk; the episode highlights how leverage, reportedly up to 400% at the fund, increasingly underpins the wider AI boom.

🌍 Macro News

• Oil prices fell Wednesday as US favors sanctions over force against Iran. LINK
• China builds dollar-access safeguards amid US sanctions threats over Iran ties. LINK
• UK energy price cap rises 4% in October, third increase this year. LINK
• Japan targets blockchain settlement system for stocks, bonds by early 2030s. LINK
• US state banking associations launch BankChain Alliance, targeting 2027 blockchain debut. LINK
• Treasury launches task force to prepare banks for quantum computing threats. LINK
• Russia launches digital ruble for everyday use, keeps crypto payment ban. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Brazil fines TikTok owner ByteDance $29.81 million over teen data misuse. LINK
• Revolut launches euro-pegged stablecoin EURR in three European markets. LINK
• Visa joins Singapore's Bloom project testing stablecoins for cross-system payments. LINK
• Standard Chartered issues $200 million digital notes on Euroclear's blockchain platform. LINK
• LayerZero launches ATLAS trading system for crypto and tokenized assets. LINK
• SpaceX to spend $100 billion on new Louisiana Starship launch site. LINK
• Intuit shares drop 10% after weak fiscal 2027 outlook overshadows earnings beat. LINK
• Amazon shuts down 21-year-old Mechanical Turk crowdsourced-labor platform in 2026. LINK
• OpenAI's data centers chief departs amid string of senior executive exits. LINK
• Self-driving truck maker Gatik raises $200 million after PepsiCo delivery deal. LINK
• Emerald AI raises $150 million to help data centers ease grid strain. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Aleph's 2026 SaaS benchmarks: collect the growth, retention and efficiency numbers SaaS finance teams are actually measured on this year. Download the free benchmarks

📅 Market Calendar

💬 How did you find today's edition?

We read every reply — just reply to this email and let us know how we can improve!