The header tags HEAVY and the calendar half-earns it: two high-impact PPI rows at 8:30 ET, jobless claims alongside them, two Fed speakers inside 25 minutes (Hammack 8:15, Barkin 8:40), and a 30-year auction at 13:01. Real, but a step down from yesterday’s four high-impact CPI rows — today is the confirmation session, not the event session. July CPI slowed to 3.4% as expected and the response was modest: S&P cash 7,728 → 7,748, +0.26%. A shrug, not a relief rally. What moved is volatility and oil — VIX 15.38 → 14.57 with the regime flipping normal → low and risk appetite moderate → aggressive, and WTI down $1.86 to 81.51, unwinding two sessions of Hormuz premium. Two open items resolved badly and one regressed: LUNR reports before open and is −3.36% pre-print, SPIR reported yesterday and is −6.17%, and the Bitcoin row broke again after exactly one session of correct data.
Kospi +3.56% is the second consecutive 3.5%+ session and the fifth straight up day — 6,300 → 6,346 → 6,579 → 6,813, or +7.4% in two sessions. Monday’s brief called Korea “the only clean read on Asian semis”; it has gone parabolic. Today’s feed adds SK Hynix pursuing a $720B buildout and Lenovo profits soaring past expectations on AI computers and servers. But the US-listed confirmation broke: MU is −0.03% at 911, and the same feed reports YMTC topping Micron and Kioxia in NAND shipments. Korea is going vertical on a cycle where the US proxy just stopped confirming — respect the print, distrust the extrapolation. Nikkei +1.16% on Japan wholesale inflation easing to 7.2%, undershooting expectations, with Goldman noting $1 trillion of reserves leaves ample capacity for further yen intervention — one less source of global duration supply. Hang Seng fell a third consecutive session (25,653 → 25,440 → 25,397), though the decline is decelerating: three down days through a Tencent beat is a risk-appetite problem, not a fundamentals one.
Europe is bid, but the proxies and cash disagree. FEZ +0.93% and DAX +0.50% against FTSE −0.22%, with CAC 40 +0.20% in between. IEV’s change field is broken — it prints +0.00% while its level fell 76.99 → 75.52, a 1.9% decline, contradicting every other European row in the file. The cash indices are the cleaner read, and they say a modestly green European session with no data conflict beyond the proxy artifact. Australia (EWA) +0.15% is flat-to-firm and adds nothing either way.
The overnight tape is broadly constructive and narrowly informative. The one large move is Korea, and its US read-through just stopped working — MU flat at 911 on a Kospi +3.56% day, with YMTC taking NAND share. Japan’s softer PPI plus intervention capacity keeps BoJ normalization off the table, which matters for global duration on a 30-year auction day. Everything else is small: Europe green with a broken proxy row, Hong Kong red a third session on sentiment rather than earnings. Nothing overnight prices the 8:30 PPI, and nothing overnight prices the 13:01 auction — the two events that actually decide the session.
| Market | Level | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nikkei 225 | 68,309 | +1.16% | schwab |
| Hang Seng | 25,397 | −0.17% | schwab |
| Kospi | 6,813 | +3.56% | yahoo |
| DAX | 26,462 | +0.50% | schwab |
| CAC 40 | 8,692 | +0.20% | schwab |
| FTSE 100 | 10,809 | −0.22% | yahoo |
| Europe STOXX 50 (FEZ) | 72.55 | +0.93% | schwab |
| Europe Broad (IEV) | 75.52 | +0.00% | schwab (change field wrong) |
| Australia (EWA) | 29.94 | +0.15% | schwab |
All rows carry Actual = “—” and are reported as Pending. No actual values exist in this file for any event today, despite a collection stamp that postdates every release on the board. All times ET.
| Time (ET) | Release | Consensus | Prior | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4:30 AM | PPI Report | — | — | Artifact · Ignore this row. No forecast, no prior, duplicating the 8:30 rows — same pattern as yesterday’s phantom 4:30 CPI row. Pending |
| 4:30 AM | Jobless Claims | — | — | Artifact · Ignore this row. 8:30 is the release. Pending |
| 8:15 AM | FOMC Member Hammack Speaks | — | — | Low · Lands before the print — pre-data commentary, not a reaction function. Pending |
| 8:30 AM | Core PPI m/m | 0.3% | 0.2% | High · The live number. Wholesale acceleration in the month the market has just been told consumer inflation is behaving. Pending |
| 8:30 AM | PPI m/m | 0.2% | −0.3% | High · Same shape as yesterday’s CPI — the prior negative headline was almost certainly energy, and consensus already assumes it does not repeat. Pending |
| 8:30 AM | Unemployment Claims | 202K | 199K | Medium tag, the quiet one · A number materially above 202K is the first crack — and it lands in the same block as core PPI, so a soft-labor / hot-inflation split arrives with no time to sequence. Pending |
| 8:40 AM | FOMC Member Barkin Speaks | — | — | Low tag, matters more than 8:15 · The first official reaction function applied to a fresh wholesale print, delivered into an open tape. Pending |
| 10:00 AM | Mortgage Delinquencies | — | 4.44% | Low · Quarterly, slow-moving, rarely a same-session input. Pending |
| 10:30 AM | Natural Gas Storage | 31B | 33B | Low · Routine. The energy story today is crude giving back the Hormuz premium, not gas. Pending |
| 1:01 PM | 30-Year Bond Auction | — | 5.06 | 2.4 | Low tag, the day’s structural risk · Prior stop 5.06% at 2.4x cover; the 30Y sits at 5.247% — 19bp above it — after rising on a friendly CPI, into a five-year-high deficit. Pending |
Three watchlist names, two of them Space, both down hard — the mirror image of yesterday, when six watchlist names appeared and every one was green. Watchlist names flagged with ★.
| Symbol | Price | Change | Sector | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| STEM ★ T3 | 5.65 | +3.67% | Energy Storage | The only green watchlist mover — a Tier 3 name at 5.65 against a 200-day of 12.05. A bounce in a name that broken reverses nothing, but it lands on a feed loaded with grid-storage scale news |
| Symbol | Price | Change | Sector | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPIR ★ T2 | 13.83 | −6.17% | Space | The worst print in the file. Reported yesterday; no EPS figures appear anywhere in this file. 14.97 → 13.83 cuts its cushion over the 200-day (13.11) from 14% to 5.5% in one session, against a thesis flagging “restructuring risk” |
| CSCO | 116 | −6.10% | Networking (off-list) | A margin story, not a demand story — “falls on margin concerns despite AI-driven profit jump.” The AI thesis carries ANET taking DC switching share from Cisco (27.5% vs 29.9%) — and ANET is −0.36% and did not capture it |
| NBIS | 249 | −3.92% | AI Infrastructure (off-list) | Listed “up” in the news analysis and −3.92% in the price column — not a conflict: the news describes yesterday’s session, the price is today’s. Yesterday’s leadership is being sold |
| LUNR ★ T1 | 16.38 | −3.36% | Space | Reports before open — and the results are not in this file. 16.76 → 16.38, above its 20-day (13.97) but below both its 50-day (19.32) and 200-day (19.25), RSI 55. A 15% discount to the 200-day into the print is the market pre-registering doubt |
| INFQ | 11.95 | −3.32% | Untagged | Off-thesis, untagged — no corroborating item in the feed |
| Name | Move | Read |
|---|---|---|
| LUNR T1 | −3.36% | Reports before open; EPS estimate “—,” EPS actual “—.” Results are not in this file and are not reported here. But the 14:38 ET collection stamp postdates the open by hours and the tape is doing something specific — the price action implies a reaction the data file cannot corroborate. Treat the move as real and its cause as unknown. The thesis names the bar: ~$275M FY2025 revenue, consensus $919M in 2026, EBITDA positive in 2026 — guidance, not the quarter, is the event. |
| SPIR T2 | −6.17% | The worst print in the file, and unexplained by the file. Spire was on yesterday’s earnings calendar; no EPS figures for it appear anywhere. What is measurable: 14.97 → 13.83, cushion over the 200-day (13.11) cut from 14% to 5.5% in a single session, against a thesis that flags “restructuring risk” outright. |
| CSCO / ANET (read-through) | −6.10% / −0.36% | Cisco’s AI profit rising while margins compress is the thesis’s networking argument showing up in Cisco’s own P&L — ANET is the Tier 1 name taking DC switching share (27.5% vs 29.9%, from 3.5% vs 78% in 2012). ANET did not capture it. This is also the first hard evidence in the feed that AI revenue growth and AI margin are separable. |
| STEM T3 | +3.67% | The only green watchlist mover. At 5.65 against a 200-day of 12.05, a bounce in a name that broken reverses nothing — but it lands on a day carrying ~2.6GWh plus a 500MW project across four grid-storage headlines. |
| News vs prices (resolution) | Yesterday vs today | The movers table and the news analysis contradict each other, and the resolution matters. The feed lists NBIS “up” and CRWV “up — led AI rally, countered a key bear case, signed A100 contracts into 2029.” The price columns read NBIS −3.92% and CRWV 105, −2.44%. Not a conflict — the news describes yesterday’s session, the prices are today’s. CRWV went 107 → 105 after an +18.49% day. Yesterday’s leadership is being sold, not extended. |
Earnings today: LUNR (Space, Tier 1) — before open. EPS estimate “—,” EPS actual “—.” Results are not in this file and are not reported here. But the tape is doing something specific: LUNR is −3.36% at 16.38, and the 14:38 ET collection timestamp postdates the open by hours. The price action implies a reaction the data file cannot corroborate — treat the move as real and its cause as unknown.
The setup going in was already poor: 16.76 → 16.38, above its 20-day (13.97) but below both its 50-day (19.32) and 200-day (19.25), RSI 55. The thesis states the bar precisely — ~$275M FY2025 revenue, consensus $919M in 2026, EBITDA positive in 2026 — and that guidance, not the quarter, is the event. A 15% discount to the 200-day into that print is the market pre-registering doubt.
Only one Tier 1 name moved more than 3%: LUNR, −3.36%. The largest Tier 1 gain is PANW +1.94%. Thirty-six Tier 1 names and the full range is −3.36% to +1.94% — an extraordinarily quiet watchlist.
| Ticker | Move | Read |
|---|---|---|
| SPIR T2 | −6.17% | The worst print in the file. 14.97 → 13.83, cushion over the 200-day (13.11) cut from 14% to 5.5% in one session. No EPS figures for it appear anywhere in this file. |
| RKLB T1 | −2.12% | Losing the 200-day it just reclaimed. 80.00 → 79.45, now 1.5% above 78.24 — broke two sessions ago, repaired yesterday, back at the line today. Oscillating around trend rather than holding it, with Neutron’s first flight slipped to 2027. |
| USAR T1 | −3.9% (19.10 → 18.35) | Lost its 200-day outright — now 4.4% below 19.19. The critical-minerals catalyst (first 1,200 t/year magnet line, targeted H1 2026) still has zero confirmation in this file, six sessions running. |
| SYK T1 | −1.64% | The second-worst Tier 1 name, closing exactly at its 200-day (342 vs 342) with no company news in the feed — a level to watch, not a signal. |
| IBM T1 | +1.32% | The day’s quiet catalyst hit — Yonsei upgrading its IBM Quantum System One to the next-generation Nighthawk QPU, a real deployment of the line the thesis tracks toward 2029 fault tolerance. IBM sits above its 20-day (224), below its 50-day (256) and 200-day (269). |
| HON T1 | +0.17% | Holds 53% of Quantinuum on a day Quantinuum posted 279% revenue growth, a $1.7B IPO and Oracle Cloud integration — a fourth straight session of catalyst without price response. |
| Ticker | RSI | Price | vs 200-day | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CACI | 81 | 677 | +22% | Unverified, 6th session — the board’s highest RSI, 28% above its 20-day (527) |
| LDOS | 75 | 141 | −11% | Overbought below its 200-day |
| RTX | 73 | 223 | +17% | Most extended verified defense name |
| ZS | 71 | 178 | −3% | Overbought below its 200-day · reports Sep 3 |
| PANW | 70 | 394 | +78% | The inverse problem — RSI 70 at 78% above trend, reports Sep 1 |
| LMT | 70 | 608 | +11% | Extended, the least stretched of the defense primes |
| ANET | 69 | 210 | +42% | Extended — and did not capture CSCO’s −6.10% margin story |
| CRWD | 68 | 224 | +65% | Same signature, sooner — reports Aug 26 alongside NVDA |
| NOC | 67 | 578 | −4% | Overbought below its 200-day |
| Ticker | Price | RSI | Structure |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLNC T1 | 13.21 | 42 | The file’s sharpest disconnect — the best pure-play grid-storage name at 29% below its 200-day, on a day carrying a 1,200MWh California BESS entering operations, a 1,000MWh Australian acquisition, a 500MW Scottish project reaching COD and a 421MWh supply deal, against a thesis citing a $5.5B record backlog and 48% guided revenue growth. It moved 8 basis points. |
| TSLA T1 | 326 | 41 | Below all three — unchanged structural problem, several weeks running |
| VST T1 | 147 | 46 | Below all three — nuclear is uniformly green today and VST is the underneath |
| SYM T1 | 41.30 | 47 | Below all three despite being green (+0.27%) on a mixed robotics board |
The scenarios below are constructed from levels, consensus and positioning already in this brief — no actual value for any release exists in this file, and nothing here forecasts an unreported number. The organising fact: an in-line core PPI is largely priced; a 30-year auction tailing 19bp above the prior stop is not.
Core PPI prints near 0.3% with claims near 202K — already the consensus, already largely priced after yesterday’s in-line CPI. Barkin at 8:40 says nothing that moves the path. The 36-point futures gap over cash 7,748 converts into a firm open led by the cohort that led overnight: Dow and Russell over Nasdaq, with cybersecurity extending its reversal. The 13:01 auction stops through at a materially higher yield than 5.06% but covers, and the 30Y holds near 5.25%. The rotation persists rather than broadens — AI infrastructure stays flat, CRWV and NBIS keep bleeding yesterday’s gains, and the unresolved items stay unresolved: the 2Y is stale an eighth session, CACI unverified a sixth, and the Bitcoin row still broken.
Core PPI comes in at or below 0.2% with claims near consensus — wholesale confirming what CPI already said, with none of the “stickier than the mild headline suggests” problem the feed flags. The 30Y auction covers well above 2.4x, the long end reverses its +1.1bp and the term-premium read gets retired for a session. That is the combination that broadens the rotation instead of merely moving it: Russell leads outright, the four broken Tier 1 charts — FLNC, TSLA, VST, SYM — get their first real bid in weeks, and FLNC finally trades the 2.6GWh of storage news it has ignored. The tell would be RKLB holding 78.24 and SYK holding 342 rather than losing them.
Core PPI prints above 0.3% — or worse, claims come in materially above 202K alongside it, which is the soft-labor/hot-inflation split the feed calls a challenge “building for Fed Chair Kevin Warsh,” arriving in one block with no time to sequence the reaction. Barkin at 8:40 then speaks into it. The compounding risk is the afternoon: the 30Y already sits 19bp above the prior 5.06% stop after rising on a friendly CPI, and a 2.4x prior cover was already thin into a July deficit at a five-year high. A tail closes the 36-point futures gap in the afternoon rather than the morning. VIX at 14.57 with the regime downgraded to “low” and appetite to “aggressive” means realized vol on this path exceeds what is priced — and the overbought cyber/defense cohort has the least room to absorb it. With the 2Y frozen an eighth session, the file cannot measure the damage.
data/briefing-2026-08-13.md. Cross-session comparisons come from morning-brief/2026-08/2026-08-12_Wed.md. Thesis context and catalyst dates are cross-referenced from the nine sector research files in research/, including research/calendar/CALENDAR.md for structural dates. No web search was used.