Morning Wrap: ASX 200 futures flat, S&P 500 little changed, Nvidia smashes Q2 earnings

In a nutshell:

• It was a fairly quiet session on Wall Street that saw major US benchmarks closed slightly lower, trading sideways in a rangebound session as traders waited for Nvidia’s after the bell print

• Nvidia (+4.65% after hours) beat on every line and guided fiscal Q3 revenue to $108bn, roughly $3.8bn above consensus, with supply commitments more than doubling to $279bn on memory procurement 

• Headline PCE held at 3.7% year-on-year against 3.6% expected, and money markets moved to fully price a Fed rate rise by December 

Let's dive in.

• Major US benchmarks finished slightly lower and traded sideways in a rangebound session

• Long term US bond yields pushed higher, ending two days of falls, 30-year was up 1.5bps and the 10-year rose 2.6bps

• Brent made a 0.8% gain to US$86.67 a barrel after two straight days of declines

• Gold lost some ground down 1.3% to US$4,595/oz, after 7.5% of gains over the prior five sessions

• Victory Capital agreed to buy First Eagle Investments for about $7bn, taking combined assets under management to roughly $571bn in the latest sign of consolidation across asset management (BBG)

• Bitcoin held near US$78,500 after clearing US$80,000 on Wednesday for the first time in more than three months, with the rally following the Treasury's move to double long-bond repurchases (YF)

• Nvidia fiscal Q2 2027: revenue $96.22bn, up 106% year-on-year, beating the $92.17bn consensus by roughly 4%, with adjusted EPS of $2.22 topping the $2.10 estimate by about 6% (CNBC)

• Nvidia guided fiscal Q3 revenue to $108bn plus or minus 2% against consensus near $104.2bn, with the outlook assuming no data centre compute revenue from China (CNBC)

• Nvidia supply commitments more than doubled to $279bn from $119bn a quarter earlier, primarily memory procurement, with gross margin holding at 75% for a second quarter under rising component costs (CNBC)

• Salesforce Q2 net income jumped 87% to $3.53bn, or $4.29 a share, helped by a $2.6bn gain on strategic investments including its stake in Anthropic, sending shares up about 14% after hours (CNBC)

• Meta agreed to pay about US$16.7bn to settle multistate claims that it designed addictive features harming young users, with terms including default daily time limits, nighttime blocks and stronger age assurance (CNBC)

• OpenAI published benchmark results for its Broadcom-built Jalapeño inference chip, with Omdia analyst Alexander Harrowell forecasting custom ASICs will exceed GPU volumes by 2028 (CNBC)

• Kohl's fell after second-quarter comparable sales dropped 0.9% against expectations for a 0.6% decline, though the retailer lifted guidance and restarted buybacks of up to $100m in 2026 (CNBC)

• IGRC said Washington is obstructing an Iran-Oman transit agreement, adding the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until the US accepts Tehran's conditions (CNBC)

• Just five commodity vessels transited Hormuz on Tuesday, below the 10-day average of 15 according to preliminary Kepler data (CNBC)

• Iran and Oman said their foreign ministers discussed a proposed framework for a joint temporary navigational corridor through Hormuz and an agreement to implement a joint mine clearance project (CNN)

• Iranian deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the route's entry and part of its exit run through Iranian territorial waters, and dismissed Trump's mine clearance claim as aimed at calming markets (AJ)

• US Treasury sanctions campaign targets Iranian aviation, shipping, technology, gold and digital assets, with Secretary Scott Bessent pledging a zero-leakage approach to cutting off oil revenue (CNN)

• Beijing said its relationship with Iran should not be disrupted or undermined after the US sanctioned dozens of Chinese entities and threatened to target an unnamed major financial institution (BBG)

• Foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian warned China will take all necessary measures to safeguard its interests, underscoring the risk of a fresh clash before a leaders' summit next month (BBG)

• Canada matched US levies with dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs on roughly $28bn of American goods, covering steel and aluminium products, milk, furniture, clothing, video game consoles and smartphones (BBG)

• The Canadian measures equal about 6% of US exports to Canada last year, with Prime Minister Mark Carney pairing them with support for domestic businesses hurt by the trade war (BBG)

• Money markets moved to fully price a Federal Reserve rate rise by December after the July inflation and activity batch, with short-dated Treasuries underperforming across the curve (BBG)

• ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel told Bloomberg further euro-area rate hikes are needed, with inflation projected to exceed 2% for an extended period (BBG)

• Fed chair Warsh delivers his first Jackson Hole keynote on Friday, with investors seeking clarity on how he intends to return inflation to target after a communications approach criticised as opaque (BBG)

• Warsh offered little insight on the economy after the July meeting and avoided forward guidance, with investors reading it as a lack of resolve on inflation as long-term yields climbed to a two-decade high (BBG)

• US headline PCE rose 0.2% in July and held at 3.7% year-on-year, against consensus for 0.1% and 3.6%, marking a second month with no progress toward the Fed's target (BEA)

• Core PCE rose 0.2% month-on-month and 3.3% year-on-year, both matching expectations, leaving core 1.3 percentage points above the Fed's 2% objective (BEA)

• Real consumer spending was flat in July, a sharp slowdown from a 0.4% gain in June, as households pulled back in the face of persistent price pressures (CNN)

• US personal income rose 0.4%, or $115.1bn, with disposable income up 0.5% and the personal saving rate at 3.0%, driven by compensation, government social benefits and asset income (BEA)

• July durable goods orders rose 1.1%, well ahead of the 0.5% expected, pointing to firmer manufacturing demand than the consumer data implied (TE)

• Australia's July monthly CPI rose 1.0%, the first monthly increase in three and the fastest in four months, against expectations for 0.8% (ABS)

• Australia's trimmed mean CPI held at 3.6% year-on-year, above the 3.5% consensus and still the highest since September 2024, with the weighted median easing to 3.6% from 3.7% (ABS)

• Australian services inflation eased to 3.7% from 4.0% and housing inflation fell to an 11-month low of 5.0% from 6.8%, with goods inflation at an 11-month low of 3.2% (ABS)

There are approximately 96 companies reporting today. We thought 96 bullet points might be a bit much, so please check out the Live Blog for a full breakdown of today's reporters (or as many as we can humanly cover)

• Miner pullback: Commodities like copper (-1.6%), gold (-1.3%), Chinese lithium carbonate futures (-1.1%) and aluminium (-0.4%) traded lower overnight. This drove most mining equities lower, with broad declines for US-listed ETFs like Gold Miners (-2.9%), Silver Miners (-2.1%), Rare Earth/Strategic Metals (-1.3%) and Copper Miners (-0.8%). We already saw rather lethargic day for the S&P/ASX 200 Materials Index, which fell 0.02% on Wednesday after rallying 1.48% intraday. A pullback is on the cards for local mining equities after a run into record highs. Let's see how the dust settles (e.g. an orderly pullback, or one of those aggressive tumbles we've seen in the past few months).

Stocks trading ex-dividend: 

• Thu 27 Aug: Australian United Investment Company (AUI) – $0.28, Cuscal (CCL) – $0.07, Ebos Group (EBO) – $0.448, Heartland Group (HGH) – $0.029, Ignite (IGN) – $0.03, IPH (IPH) – $0.195, JB Hi-Fi (JBH) – $1.27, MLG OZ (MLG) – $0.013, REA Group (REA) – $1.73, SRG Global (SRG) – $0.04, TPG Telecom (TPG) – $0.10, Ventia Services (VNT) – $0.118

• Fri 28 Aug: 360 Capital Mortgage REIT (TCF) – $0.05, Argo Global Listed Infrastructure (ALI) – $0.055, Beach Energy (BPT) – $0.02, Fiducian Group (FID) – $0.282, Iress (IRE) – $0.14, KKR Credit Income Fund (KKC) – $0.017, Orora (ORA) – $0.04, Quickfee (QFE) – $0.005, Regal Partners (RPL) – $0.12, Shape Australia (SHA) – $0.18

• Mon 31 Aug: Ansell (ANN) – $0.581, Aurizon Holdings (AZJ) – $0.105, Australian Finance Group (AFG) – $0.048, Carlton Investments (CIN) – $0.73, GR Engineering Services (GNG) – $0.13, Iluka Resources (ILU) – $0.03, Mitchell Services (MSV) – $0.02, Pengana International Equities (PIA) – $0.014, Pinnacle Investment Management (PNI) – $0.31, Wagners (WGN) – $0.05

• Tue 1 Sept: Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (BEN) – $0.33, Codan (CDA) – $0.29, Endeavour Group (EDV) – $0.012, Fortescue (FMG) – $0.46, L1 Group (L1G) – $0.02, Pengana Global Private Credit Trust (PCX) – $0.013, Propel Funeral Partners (PFP) – $0.069, Stealth Group Holdings (SGI) – $0.015 

Other ASX corporate actions today:       

• Dividends paid: Centuria Capital Group (CNI) – $0.05, BWP Group (BWP) – $0.09, Alcoa Corp (AAI) – $0.10 

• Earnings: 4DMedical (4DX), Ai-Media Technologies (AIM), Appen (APX), Atlas Arteria (ALX), Aurelia Metals (AMI), Bapcor (BAP), Beacon Lighting Group (BLX), BETR Entertainment (BBT), Bhagwan Marine (BWN), Boss Energy (BOE), Brazilian Rare Earths (BRE), Bubs Australia (BUB), Centuria Capital Group (CNI), Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals (CUV), Cluey (CLU), Credit Clear (CCR), Cromwell Property Group (CMW), CurveBeam AI (CVB), Delorean (DEL), DUG Technology (DUG), Eagers Automotive (APE), EarlyPay (EPY), EchoIQ (EIQ), EDU Holdings (EDU), Emerald Resources (EMR), EPX (EPX), EQT Holdings (EQT), Fleetwood (FWD), Generation Development Group (GDG), Gold Hydrogen (GHY), Harvey Norman (HVN), Horizon Oil (HZN), IGO (IGO), ImpediMed (IPD), Income Asset Management (IAM), Integrated Research (IRI), Intelligent Monitoring Group (IMB), Janus Electric (JNS), Joyce Corporation (JYC), Jumbo Interactive (JIN), Locality Planning Energy (LPE), Magellan Financial Group (MFG), Mayfield Group (MYG), Mayne Pharma (MYX), McPherson's (MCP), NextDC (NXT), Objective Corporation (OCL), Omni Bridgeway (OBL), OncoSil Medical (OSL), Pacific Current Group (PAC), PainChek (PCK), Perpetual (PPT), PointsBet (PBH), PYC Therapeutics (PYC), Qantas Airways (QAN), Raiz Invest (RZI), Ramsay Health Care (RHC), RAS Technology (RTH), ReadyTech (RDY), Rhythm Biosciences (RHY), Saunders International (SND), SciDev (SDV), Shaver Shop (SSG), Sigma Healthcare (SIG), Silex Systems (SLX), Smartgroup (SIQ), Sparc Technologies (SPN), Spenda (SPX), Star Entertainment Group (SGR), Swoop (SWP), Tasmea (TEA), Trajan (TRJ), Vection Technologies (VR1), Veem (VEE), Waypoint REIT (WPR), Wesfarmers (WES), Wiseway (WWG), xReality Group (XRG)

• IPOs: None

• AGMs: Web Travel Group (WEB) – 9:00 am, Xero (XRO) 

Economic calendar (AEST): 

No major economic announcements.