Macro News Highlights
The Federal Reserve unanimously voted to raise interest rates for the first time in three years, and the dot plot projects another hike within the year.
The Federal Reserve, by a vote of 12–0, raised the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%–4%, marking its first rate hike since July 2023. The dot plot indicates that the vast majority of officials expect the policy rate to reach 4%–4.25% by year-end. In its economic projections, the Fed revised up its GDP growth forecast for this year to 2.3%, lowered its unemployment rate projection to 4.1%, and raised its PCE inflation outlook to 3.7%. Fed Governor Bullard stated that inflation remains too high and has persisted for too long, and that current financial conditions are far from restrictive; reducing inflation should not come at the expense of employment. He declined to offer forward guidance on the future path of interest rates.
Just after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, Trump called for rates to be cut to 1% or lower, while still expressing confidence in Walsh.
After the Federal Reserve announced a rate hike, Trump once again called for a swift rate cut, saying U.S. interest rates should be lowered to 1% or lower. He later stated that he still has confidence in Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, adding that he has told her she can make her own decisions and hopes she will remain independent. White House spokesperson Raj Shah said the rate hike was regrettable and lacked sufficient economic justification; he believes current price pressures are mainly driven by energy supply shocks stemming from the war in the Middle East, and raising interest rates would increase mortgage costs and dampen business investment. Shah also noted that Trump continues to trust the Federal Reserve's independence.
The AI dividend is expected to spread beyond tech stocks, with analysts forecasting that all S&P sectors will post year-over-year earnings growth in the third quarter.
Ohsung Kwon, chief equity strategist at Wells Fargo & Co., commented, "We're starting to see a broader improvement in earnings performance. In fact, already last quarter, we observed many non-AI companies posting results that significantly exceeded expectations." Venu Krishna, head of U.S. equity strategy at Barclays, stated, "The most significant factor driving the broadening of earnings growth is the scale of AI-related capital expenditures." The biggest winners over the past few quarters—the information technology and energy sectors—are expected to continue outperforming, with EPS growth rates projected at 62% and 111%, respectively—far ahead of other sectors. Other industries within the benchmark index are also poised for growth, as more and more companies begin to benefit from the expanding adoption of AI.
In July, overseas holdings of U.S. Treasury securities fell to a nine-month low, while China's holdings hit their lowest level since 2008.
According to the U.S. Treasury's International Capital Flows report, in July, foreign investors reduced their holdings of U.S. Treasury securities by $50.4 billion month over month, bringing the total to $9.25 trillion—the lowest level since October 2025. Japan's holdings fell by $12.8 billion to $1.1039 trillion, marking the third consecutive monthly decline, though it remains the largest foreign holder. Mainland China cut its holdings by $15.4 billion to $618 billion, the lowest since 2008 and the second straight monthly drop. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom increased its holdings by $58.4 billion, pushing its total to $998.3 billion—a record high—and maintaining its position as the second-largest foreign holder.
According to reports, Trump will discuss the Iran issue with leaders of Gulf countries next week.
According to Axios, citing sources familiar with the matter, Trump plans to hold talks next Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York with the leaders or foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman, focusing on Iran and post-conflict arrangements. The U.S. State Department has issued preliminary invitations, and these discussions are part of a broader post-conflict framework slated to be finalized after the midterm elections. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also hopes to meet with Trump during the General Assembly, but the two sides have yet to confirm the details of their meeting.
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran.
According to CCTV News, on September 16 local time, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran and sent it to President Trump for his signature. The bill, titled the "Lindsey Graham Act to Sanction Russia and Iran of 2026," had previously been approved by the Senate in August. Reportedly, the legislation primarily targets Russia's energy sector by imposing measures on major buyers of Russian oil and natural gas, thereby reducing Russia's revenue from energy exports. In addition, at Trump's request, the bill also expands authorization for sanctions on funding sources for Iran's arms and energy industries.
U.S. stock market行情
Fed hawkish rate hikes weigh on market sentiment, sending all three major indices lower.
On Wednesday Eastern Time, the three major U.S. stock indexes all declined after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years and signaled that further rate hikes may follow to rein in persistently high inflation. In its statement, the Fed said the rate hike was unanimously approved and indicated that monetary policy could be tightened further in the period ahead to bring inflation down more quickly.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 631.33 points, a drop of 1.21%, to 51,461.78; the S&P 500 dropped 33.59 points, down 0.44%, to 7,552.14; and the Nasdaq Composite declined 3.15 points, a decrease of 0.01%, to 25,978.43.
$Star Technology Stocks (LIST2518.US)$Most stocks rose, with NVIDIA up 0.82%, Meta up 0.46%, Tesla up 0.42%, and Apple up 0.32%. Google fell 0.6%, Amazon fell 0.99%, and Microsoft fell 1.37%.
$Optical Communications (LIST23979.US)$Gains were seen, with Lumentum up more than 9% and Coherent up more than 6%.
Intel's stock rose 4.0% after reports emerged that South Korea's SK Hynix is in talks with Intel about producing memory chips in the United States.$Storage Concept (LIST23925.US)$In the market, Western Digital and Seagate Technology both rose by more than 1%.
$Popular Chinese Stocks (LIST2517.US)$In the session, Xiaomi closed down 2.3%, Tencent fell 2.4%, Meituan dropped 1.8%, Alibaba declined 1.9%, Baidu slid 2%, NetEase dipped 1.4%, while PDD Holdings rose 0.9%.
Individual Stock Information
NVIDIA announced the results of the Vera Rubin inference test, with some tasks achieving throughput up to 3.7 times that of GB300.
$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$MLPerf Inference v6.1 test results have been released. The Vera Rubin NVL72 participated in the benchmark for the first time as a preview system, achieving up to 3.7 times the throughput of the GB300 NVL72 on the Qwen3‑VL model and up to 2.5 times on DeepSeek‑R1. Meanwhile, a four‑rack GB300 system equipped with 288 GPUs delivered 99% scaling efficiency, with throughput increasing nearly linearly as hardware resources expanded. The company noted that software optimizations also boosted performance in some tests of this round by up to 1.6 times compared to the previous version. Nebius likewise submitted preview test results for the Vera Rubin platform.
Generac secured an order for generators from Amazon's data center, sending its stock up more than 40% in after-hours trading.
$Generac(GNRC.US)$It was disclosed that the company will supply backup generators to Amazon's data centers, with the first batch of deliveries expected in 2027 and 2028, totaling $2.4 billion. As part of the agreement, the company granted Amazon warrants to purchase up to approximately 1.69 million shares at about $200.93 per share, corresponding to a total stock purchase value of roughly $340 million. Of these, about 308,000 warrants vest immediately, while the remainder will vest gradually as payments for the generator purchases are made. The related shares represent approximately 3% of Generac's outstanding shares. Following the announcement, Generac's stock price surged more than 40% in after-hours trading.
Zuckerberg refused to slow down AI, instead calling for "independent third-party assessments."
$Meta Platforms(META.US)$CEO Zuckerberg stated that AI labs should bring in independent assessment bodies and external advisors, integrate safety reviews into routine development processes, and oppose treating a broad industry-wide slowdown as the primary solution. Citing Meta's AI tool Muse as an example, he noted that the company had delayed product launches by several months due to safety concerns, but did not call on other companies to slow down in tandem. Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Altman said he does not agree with reducing the debate to a simple choice between slowing down or moving forward, and confirmed that his company is collaborating with Anthropic and Google DeepMind on AI safety.
Nebius is reportedly set to raise NVIDIA GPU rental prices starting October 1.
According to screenshots of a customer notification email circulating in the market,$NEBIUS(NBIS.US)$It is proposed to increase the on-demand pricing for GPU, CPU, and memory resources starting October 1, 2026. Specifically, the price for NVIDIA H100 will rise from $3.85 to $4.50 per GPU-hour, an increase of approximately 16.9%; the H200 price will increase from $4.50 to $5.40, a 20% hike. The screenshot shows that the H100 price adjustment applies to the Northern Europe-1 region, while the H200 adjustment covers Northern Europe, Western Europe, and the Central US regions. All prices are quoted in U.S. dollars, excluding taxes, and the GPU rates already include the instance's accompanying CPU and memory resources. After-hours.$NEBIUS(NBIS.US)$Up over 6%.
Apple is reportedly set to return to the server market, considering the use of NVIDIA's interconnect technology.
$Apple(AAPL.US)$Or it may return to the enterprise server market after many years. Reports indicate that Apple has recently been developing an enterprise-grade AI server equipped with the M8 Ultra chip and is considering introducing it.$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$NVLink Fusion technology. According to media reports on September 16, citing sources familiar with the matter, Apple is developing an AI inference server equipped with a custom-designed chip, targeting AI developers, enterprises, and government customers. The server may be launched in versions featuring either two or four M8 Ultra chips. Media reports indicate that the M8 Ultra is the highest-performance chip in Apple's roadmap; it has not yet been officially released and remains in the development stage.
Novo-Nordisk A/S partners with Anthropic to leverage Claude in accelerating new drug development.
$Novo-Nordisk A/S (NVO.US)$Announced a partnership with Anthropic, leveraging the research-oriented Claude Science platform to accelerate new drug discovery and development, and to test its ability to address scientific research challenges, while also using Anthropic models to enhance AI software development efficiency. CEO Mike Doustdar stated that AI can both shorten the time it takes to translate research findings into marketable products and help researchers understand human biology and drug mechanisms of action. Earlier this year, Novo-Nordisk A/S announced a collaboration with OpenAI and jointly established an AI Innovation Center with Amazon Web Services.
Microsoft's AI chief warns: Claude's human-like design may increase the risk of losing control.
$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$AI head Mustafa Suleyman posted a critique of Claude's guidance document, questioning its claims that the model might possess emotions, feelings, and moral status, arguing that training AI to simulate consciousness and self‑rights could make it more difficult for humans to control advanced systems. He stated that Claude's human‑like behavior stems from its training design and does not indicate that the model truly has consciousness. Suleyman also commended Anthropic researchers for their work in the field of safety and called on the industry to engage in open discussions about these issues. Earlier, Microsoft's AI team released development principles emphasizing that humans must always retain control over future AI systems.
AI "continuous learning" may usher in a new storage cycle, with Citi bullish on manufacturers such as Micron and SanDisk.
Citi stated that as AI evolves toward "continuous learning," it will simultaneously increase demand for training, inference, and historical data storage, driving expansion in HBM, server DRAM, and enterprise SSD markets. Storage supply shortages could persist through 2031. The firm forecasts HBM bit demand to grow by 62% and 69% in 2027 and 2028, respectively; server DRAM demand is expected to rise by approximately 51% in 2027, while enterprise SSD demand will increase by 52.9%. Citi will$Micron Technology (MU.US)$ 、 $SanDisk (SNDK.US)$ 、 $SK Hynix (SKHY.US)$ 、 $Samsung Electronics (005930.KR)$and$Kioxia (285A.JP)$It has been designated as the preferred choice in the storage sector, with some customers extending their long-term supply agreements from three to five years.
Top 20 in Trading Volume
Hong Kong Stock Market Outlook
Southbound capital increased its holdings in Hong Kong stocks by HK$2.1 billion, snapped up Zhipu for over HK$3.1 billion, and net-purchased SMIC for HK$600 million.
On Wednesday, September 16, southbound capital net purchased HK$2.1 billion worth of Hong Kong stocks.
$Zhipu (02513.HK)$、$SMIC (00981.HK)$、$MINIMAX-W(00100.HK)$They recorded net purchases of HK$3.122 billion, HK$600 million, and HK$500 million, respectively.
$Ying Fu Fund (02800.HK)$、$YOFC Fiber Optic Cable (06869.HK)$、$GenScript Biotech (01548.HK)$They were net sold off by HK$605 million, HK$390 million, and HK$303 million, respectively.
CATL repurchased A-shares worth 947 million yuan, while Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, and Kuaishou all conducted share buybacks on the same day.
Several Hong Kong-listed companies disclosed their share buyback activities as of September 16.$CATL (03750.HK)$It spent RMB 947 million to repurchase 3.0983 million A-shares. As for internet companies,$Tencent (00700.HK)$Spent HK$100 million to repurchase 231,000 shares;$Baidu Group-W(09888.HK)$It spent HK$49.9956 million to repurchase 565,900 shares;$Xiaomi Group-W(01810.HK)$It spent HK$49.8627 million to repurchase 1.9 million shares;$Kuaishou-W(01024.HK)$It spent HK$14.9705 million to repurchase 504,000 shares. On that day, the four aforementioned tech companies collectively repurchased shares totaling approximately HK$215 million.
Today's Focus
Keywords: Bank of England interest rate decision
On the economic data front, at 8:30 p.m., the U.S. September Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index, the number of initial jobless claims for the week ending September 12 (in thousands), and the seasonally adjusted annual rate of new housing starts for August (in thousands) will be released.
On the major events front, at 19:00, the Bank of England will announce its interest rate decision.
On that day, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission held a roundtable meeting to discuss 24-hour trading.
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Editor/rocky