Khan Capitals | August 2026
Key Takeaways
- Nvidia broke the curse. A $96.2 billion quarter, guidance $4 billion above the street and a tripled AWS order made this the first Nvidia print in a year the market bought.
- The hike is back. Core PCE stuck at 3.3 per cent and Kevin Warsh’s first Jackson Hole keynote pushed September rate-hike odds from 35 to 46 per cent in a session.
- A record buyout died of its own leak. Advent and Stripe walked away from their roughly $53 billion pursuit of PayPal, and the shares fell 12.7 per cent.
- The quiet stories are inflationary. Wheat hit two-year highs, up 51 per cent this year, as the Black Sea closed for grain, and gold tested $4,700 on record central bank buying.
The Week in One Paragraph
This was the week the market’s two favourite stories collided and both somehow won. The AI trade got its strongest evidence of the cycle, a Nvidia quarter so good the shares were bought for the first time in a year, while the soft-landing trade lost ground on a stalled inflation gauge and a new Fed chair who told Jackson Hole, plainly, that hikes are on the table. Around the headline bouts, the undercard mattered: the largest leveraged buyout ever attempted quietly died, the Black Sea stopped shipping grain, and gold marched back toward its May record. Equities absorbed all of it with a drift rather than a drop; the S&P 500 sat near 7,731 after Thursday’s Nvidia-led rally, and the repricing happened where it usually does now, sector by sector and in the bond market’s front end.
1. Nvidia’s $96 Billion Answer
Revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106 per cent; data centre sales of $89 billion against an $86.3 billion consensus; a $108 billion guide for the current quarter, $4 billion above the street; and an AWS commitment that now totals more than 3 million GPUs. After four straight post-earnings declines and a summer in which record results were routinely sold, the market chose to buy this one: the shares rose almost 9 per cent after hours and the Nasdaq followed. The fine print was a falling margin path, guided to a trough of 71 to 72 per cent as memory costs bite, with price rises promised in fiscal 2028. Our full analysis of the print, the AWS order and the margin bill is in Nvidia Q2 Earnings: The $96 Billion Quarter the Market Finally Bought.
2. Hot PCE Meets a Hawkish First Keynote
Friday delivered the macro event of the month in two instalments. July core PCE printed 3.3 per cent against 3.2 expected, a fourth month without progress, and hours later Kevin Warsh used his first Jackson Hole keynote as Fed chair to warn that unless inflation returns to target “clearly and at sufficient speed”, the committee has “work to do”. September hike odds jumped from 35 to 46 per cent, the two-year yield hit a one-month high, and, tellingly, the 30-year fell: the long end read the hawkishness as credibility. The full breakdown of the print, the speech and the curve’s verdict is in The Fed Rate Hike Is Back on the Table.
3. The $53 Billion Deal That Repriced Itself to Death
Advent International and Stripe abandoned their pursuit of PayPal on Friday, ending what would have been the largest leveraged buyout on record. The mechanism was almost elegant: a $60.50-per-share approach made at July’s lows leaked, the leak drove a 40 per cent rally, and the rally destroyed the buyout arithmetic. PayPal fell 12.7 per cent to $53.66 on more than double its average volume. What the episode says about price discipline in private markets, the reflexivity trap in take-privates and Stripe’s next move is in The PayPal Takeover Collapse.
4. The Black Sea Stops Shipping Grain
Away from the main tape, wheat rose 10 per cent this week to two-year highs, taking its 2026 gain to 51 per cent, after strikes and navigation bans took more than 90 per cent of Russia’s Black Sea grain export capacity offline while Ukraine’s Odesa hub sat idle. The disruption has landed in the peak shipping season, both breadbaskets are dark at once, and the insurance market is unwilling to bridge the gap. Why we think this is the most underpriced story of the month, and what it means for winter inflation prints, is in The Black Sea Grain Crisis.
5. Gold Tests $4,700
Gold added roughly $600 an ounce in under a month, closing Tuesday at $4,677, its highest since mid-May, with futures through $4,700. The structural layer is record central bank buying, 288.9 tonnes in the second quarter alone; the cyclical layer is a $40 trillion US debt pile, doubled Treasury buybacks and a softer dollar. Friday’s hawkish turn is the first test of which layer has been doing the lifting. Our decomposition of the rally, and what would reverse it, is in The Gold Price Rally.
The Numbers
| Market | Level | The week’s story |
|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | ~7,731 | Nvidia-led gains Thursday, drift Friday |
| 2-year Treasury | 4.29% | +6.6bp Friday; one-month high on hike risk |
| 30-year Treasury | 5.16% | Fell on the hawkish signal; bear flattening |
| September hike odds | 46% | From 35% Thursday, per CME data |
| Gold | ~$4,677 | Three-month high; futures through $4,700 |
| Wheat | Two-year high | +10% on the week, +51% in 2026 |
| PayPal | $53.66 | -12.7% Friday as the buyout pursuit ended |
| Brent crude | ~$88.58 | Fell 3.9% Tuesday as supply fears eased |
What to Watch Next Week
- Friday 4 September: the August US employment report, the first of two data points standing between here and the September FOMC; a second negative payrolls print would collide with the hike case.
- Tuesday 8 September: the wind-down deadline for general licences under the new US sanctions on Iran; the first hard test of enforcement.
- Wednesday 9 September: the Treasury’s first upsized buyback operation in the long end.
- Through the week: any restart at Novorossiysk or movement on a Black Sea corridor, and whether September hike odds hold near a coin toss as positioning settles.
Related Reading: This week’s full analyses: Nvidia’s $96 billion quarter, the hike back on the table, the PayPal takeover collapse, the Black Sea grain crisis and the gold price rally.
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