☕️ ECB hikes rates as Iran war lifts inflation

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.

In today's newsletter:

💶 ECB hikes rates to 2.5% as Iran war lifts inflation

📈 Wholesale inflation surge revives Fed rate-hike bets

☁️ Oracle's cloud infrastructure revenue doubles

🤝 Bending Spoons buys Miro at 90% discount

🪙 Nasdaq bets on Kraken to launch tokenized stocks

Plus: 🌍 11 macro news, 🏢 10 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.

📊 Before The Bell

• The European Central Bank lifted its benchmark rate to 2.5% from 2.25% and struck a hawkish tone, warning that renewed Middle East fighting has raised the risk of higher inflation over the coming year.
• The catalyst was energy: Brent crude passed $105 a barrel, up more than 4%, and Dutch wholesale gas topped €80 per megawatt hour for the first time since January 2023 after fresh US and Iran attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Surging fuel costs pushed government borrowing costs higher, with UK 10-year gilt yields hitting 5.295%, a 19-year high, as the ECB raised its 2026 eurozone growth forecast to 0.9% while expecting inflation to average 3% this year.

• U.S. wholesale prices climbed 0.4% in August, pushing the annual rate to 5.4% and lifting traders' bets on a Fed rate hike next week to nearly 66%, according to CME Group's FedWatch gauge.
• Energy drove the increase, with wholesale energy costs up 4.2% and diesel surging 24.1%, as the report landed alongside U.S. crude topping $100 a barrel and the 10-year Treasury yield hitting its highest since November 2023.
• Stock futures turned negative on the reading, which keeps annual inflation well above the Fed's 2% target and precedes both Friday's consumer price index, expected to show 3.4% headline inflation, and next week's rate decision, with officials publicly split on hiking.

• Oracle's cloud infrastructure revenue more than doubled to $7.4 billion in the quarter ended August 31, beating the $7.09 billion analysts expected, as the software maker pushes to become a larger supplier of AI computing power.
• The results, which sent shares up 7% after hours, were driven by a data center buildout: capital spending jumped to $28.50 billion from $8.50 billion a year earlier, leaving Oracle with $125 billion in debt and negative free cash flow of $5.4 billion.
• Contracted but not-yet-recognized revenue reached $664 billion, above the $630.6 billion consensus, and Oracle raised its 2027 outlook to at least $90 billion in revenue, though the stock is still down 22% this year versus an 11% gain for the S&P 500.

• Bending Spoons has agreed to buy online-whiteboard maker Miro in an all-cash deal valuing the business at $1.355 billion, roughly a 90% cut from the $17.5 billion valuation Miro reached in January 2022.
• Counting Miro's net cash, the equity value comes to about $1.79 billion, with certain shareholders reinvesting $295 million into new Bending Spoons stock; the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, pending regulatory approval.
• Bending Spoons shares rose as much as 8% on the news, extending a climb from their $29 IPO price on July 1 to the low $50s, as Miro becomes its second discounted collaboration-software purchase in five weeks after Airtable.

• Nasdaq's venture arm has put $100 million into Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, so Kraken can offer blockchain-based, round-the-clock versions of Nasdaq-listed stocks.
• The deal, which builds on a partnership first announced in March, values Kraken's parent at $21 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, and marks Nasdaq's deeper move into always-on trading.
• The tie-up follows Deutsche Börse's $200 million investment in Payward in April, with tokenized stocks now worth more than $2.9 billion in distributed value, up 7.4% over the past month.

🌍 Macro News

• U.S. diesel prices surpassed $6 a gallon amid global fuel-supply disruptions. LINK
• Oil is set to finish above $100 a barrel for the first time since May. LINK
• Government bonds sold off as surging oil revived inflation concerns across major economies. LINK
• Copper prices and mining shares fell after U.S. refined-copper tariffs stalled. LINK
• U.S. plans to sanction a large bank Monday under its Iran strategy. LINK
• Senate Republicans revised the CLARITY Act, tightening decentralized-finance rules before September’s vote. LINK
• EU regulators say Polymarket and Kalshi lack authorization to offer event contracts. LINK
• India began issuing blockchain-based corporate bonds settled in central-bank digital rupees. LINK
• Gold dropped as data and oil strengthened expectations for higher Federal Reserve rates. LINK
• UK economic growth accelerated to 0.4% in July, exceeding forecasts. LINK
• Houthi rebels seized a key Red Sea port, expanding control over shipping routes. LINK

🏢 Corporate News

• Adobe beat quarterly forecasts as revenue rose 13% and users surpassed one billion. LINK
• Enflame shares surged 206% as investors embraced China’s domestic AI-chip alternative. LINK
• OpenAI launched a financial-services ChatGPT tool for data, modeling and presentations. LINK
• Polymarket hired former Amazon finance chief Warren Jenson as its first CFO. LINK
• Kalshi launched perpetual gold and silver futures after receiving CFTC approval. LINK
• Mach Industries raised $600 million, doubling its valuation to $3.7 billion. LINK
• Aerospacelab won a €2.4 billion contract to build 264 IRIS² satellites. LINK
• Motive raised over $1.3 billion and abandoned plans for an initial offering. LINK
• Sam Bankman-Fried asked the Supreme Court to overturn his fraud conviction. LINK
• Ripple expanded GSmart with AI tools for corporate treasury and financial decisions. LINK

📈 Stocks

📑 Research & Reports

• Build 10 finance tools without an engineer: walks through building your own models and internal tools using AI. From Aleph. Download the free playbook
• Behind-the-meter power orders for AI datacenters reached 75 gigawatts globally. LINK
• AI spending is driving a semiconductor super cycle, particularly benefiting memory-chip makers. LINK
• Global clean-energy investment fell 17% as China reduced subsidies and spending. LINK
• ESMA warned crypto’s growing financial ties could amplify market shocks and risks. LINK
• Bank of America sees limited algorithmic buying power but substantial forced-selling risks. LINK
• AI is shrinking the window between software vulnerabilities and hacker exploitation to minutes. LINK

📅 Market Calendar

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