Early Look

Tuesday, September 2, 2025

After stocks closed out last Friday on a down note (but ended still the month higher), Wall Street returns from the 3-day Labor Day weekend in negative territory, kicking off a historically weak trading month in the “red” ahead of key monthly jobs numbers. A spike in global yields (UK 27-year highs), has Wall Street sightly on edge, while oil prices jump and the dollar rallies. U.S. Treasury yields were higher, with the 10-yr yield up around 6 bps to 4.28% as investors looked ahead to a key jobs report on Friday and monitored the latest tariff developments. The 2-year Treasury moved nearly 3 basis points higher to 3.652%. The 30-year bond yield climbed over 5 basis points to 4.974%. A selloff in global government bonds spooked investors and prompted a broader risk-off move, hitting equities and lifting the dollar. UK 30-year yields earlier rose to the highest since 1998 with the Autumn budget approaching. French 30-year yields also topped 4.5% for the first time since 2011. Meanwhile gold prices hit record highs, rising over 1% this morning above $3,550 an ounce. In Asian markets, The Nikkei Index rose 121 points to 42,310, the Shanghai Index fell -17 points to 3,858, and the Hang Seng Index dropped -120 points to 25,496. In Europe, the German DAX is down -270 points or 1.1% to 23,767, while the FTSE 100 slips -31 points to 9,164. In stock news, monthly EV delivery news today (TSLA, BYDDF, Nio, XPEV) while Kraft Heinz (KHC) to separate into two independent public companies. With earnings season behind us, attention turns to conference seasons, with a large slate of Wall Street conferences all week (see below).

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell -92.02 points, or 0.20%, to 45,544.88
• The Nasdaq Composite stumbled -249.61 points, or 1.15%, to 21,455.55
• The Russell 2000 Index declined -11.99 points, or 0.50%, to 2,366.42

• 10:00 AM ET ISM Manufacturing PMI for August
• 10:00 AM ET                Construction Spending M/M for July

• Earnings After the Close: HQY ZS

• Barclays 39th Annual CEO Energy & Power Conference, 9/2-9/4, in New York
• Deutsche Bank 15th Annual Aircraft Finance & Leasing Conference, 9/2-9/4, in New York
• Morgan Stanley Industrial CEOs Unplugged, 9/2-9/4
• China’s Caixin Services PMI for August

• A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that most of Donald Trump’s tariffs are illegal, undercutting the Republican President’s use of the levies as a key international economic policy tool.

• BYD Corp. (BYDDF) shares slide after it reported quarterly profit fell for the first time in more than three years, with analysts saying its competitive advantage was being eroded by Chinese government efforts to stop a price war. Net profit at the world’s biggest EV producer tumbled 30% in the second quarter to 6.4B yuan ($895M) from a year earlier, it reported. That followed a doubling of profit in the first quarter.
• Li Auto (LI) delivered 28,529 vehicles in August; that’s 7.2% below July and 40.7% vs. a year earlier.
• Nio Inc. (NIO) Q2’s net loss widened even as revenue rose, with both metrics missing analysts’ expectations; NIO Q2’s loss was 5.14-billion-yuan, equivalent to $720.8 million, widening from 5.13 billion yuan a year earlier. Revenue climbed 8.9% to 19.01 billion yuan in the three months ended June 30 (ests 4.96B yuan loss and 19.91B yuan); NIO’s gross margin rose to 10.0% in the second quarter from 9.7% a year earlier and improved from 7.6% in the first quarter. However, its vehicle margin fell to 10.3% from 12.2% a year earlier.
• Tesla’s (TSLA) China-made EV sales dropped 4% in August YoY, but Model 3 and Model Y deliveries from Shanghai surged 22.6% from July, reports Reuters.
• XPeng (XPEV) delivered 37,709 EVs in August, up 2.7% vs. July and 168.7% above a year earlier.

• Oil prices picked up on Tuesday amid questions over the stability of Russian oil supplies with brent approaching $70 per barrel. Investors are also following the impact of U.S. pressure on key Russian oil consumer India. A subset of eight OPEC+ members is due to meet to assess market conditions.
• Air Lease Corporation (AL) announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by a consortium of investors for $65.00 per share in cash, valuing the aircraft leasing company at approximately $7.4B. The acquiring group consists of Sumitomo Corporation, SMBC Aviation Capital Limited, and investment vehicles affiliated with Apollo and Brookfield.
• Frontier Group (ULCC) upgraded to Buy at Deutsche Bank on the low-cost carrier saying the firm is best positioned to benefit from rival Spirit’s bankruptcy.
• Joby Aviation (JOBY) filed prospectus supplements to allow resale of 5.3M shares issued for acquiring Strata Critical Medical’s passenger operations and 49.7M shares issued to Toyota under their stock purchase agreement at $5.03 per share.

• Cytokinetics (CYTK) shares rise over 30% pre mkt after late-stage study data shows co’s drug more effective for heart disease symptoms than standard-of-care; presented new data related to aficamten at the European Society Of Cardiology Congress 2025.
• Merck (MRK) said on Tuesday its oral drug met the main goal of reducing bad cholesterol in patients in a late-stage trial.
• Servier and IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. (IDYA) announced an exclusive license agreement to bring darovasertib, a promising treatment for a rare eye cancer, to patients worldwide.
• Zymeworks (ZYME) to discontinue clinical development of ZW171, a mesothelin-directed T cell engager.

• Goldman Sachs assumes coverage of Verizon (VZ) with a Buy rating and a $49 price target as highlights 2026 as a pivotal year for telecom and cable, driven by network modernization and competitive bundling strategies.
• Zscaler (ZS) and SailPoint (SAIL) upgraded to overweight from equal-weight at Morgan Stanley while the firm downgraded Fortinet (FTNT) to underweight from equal-weight.