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Into Thursday’s ECB, Friday’s Sep 11 CPI, and the Sep 15–16 FOMC, this week’s own book still overweights the Hormuz oil/product sleeve and USD versus EUR cash, not duration or pennies. US cash is Labor Day-closed on Friday’s S&P 7718.60 (−0.38%) NFP fade with VIX 14.53, and both equity sleeves still printed two BUY tickets a day — treat them as neutral. Crypto remains a flow-over-price overweight after spot BTC ETFs absorbed about $987M in the week ended Sep 4, while BFRI and OTLK stay watchlist-only into the Sep 28 Ameluz PDUFA. Long bonds stay underweight: Anti-Fragile kept TLT at 0, the 10-year sits at 4.784%, and HY OAS ~265bp is still too tight for a ~58% September hike path.
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Momentum |
Valuation |
Catalyst |
Crowding |
Composite |
| US equities Neutral |
3 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
3.0 |
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Labor Day left Friday’s S&P 7718.60 (−0.38%) as the last US cash mark after Thursday’s Waller bounce to ~7748 and Tuesday’s oil-shock 7631 (−0.71%); VIX never broke 17 and every issue stayed risk-on. No P/E prints landed in us_equity_ideas all week; Monday’s PSX ~$255 vs a ~$219 Street PT was flagged as a crack-spread/geo trade, not a cheap gap, after Thursday’s SNOW-vs-AVGO multiple note. The US tape was gated by Friday’s +162k NFP, mid-week DELL and SNOW prints, Monday’s ADBE Sep 10 Q3 binary, and still-dated Sep 11 CPI plus Sep 15–16 FOMC. Anti-repetition rotated the pair every session (SLB/ABNB → VLO/FRO → DELL/HAL → SNOW/HOOD → RTX/APH → DUOL/FIVE → PSX/ADBE), so no name repeated, but every issue still published two 6.5–7.5 BUY tickets.
Vs last week: Labor Day added PSX/ADBE and an ADBE Sep 10 print, but the Friday NFP fade and VIX<17 tape leave momentum, valuation, and stance unchanged.
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| EU equities Neutral |
3 |
3 |
4 |
2 |
3.0 |
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European energy led early (TTE.PA +2.8% Monday; ENI.MI +2.8% and REP.MC +4.2% Tuesday) while Friday’s only STOXX 50 mark was 6392.93 (+0.45%) and Monday’s Labor Day issue reused that holiday-weekend tape — no persistent EU-index trend beyond the oil sleeve. Sell-side PTs still implied real gaps — Monday Goldman TEF.MC €4.90 vs ~€3.68 (~34%) and a EUROB.AT valuation gap vs Spain, after Jefferies ENR.DE €215, Goldman RWE/ADYEN, and VOD 155p vs 122p — rather than published multiples. Dated EU catalysts clustered: Goldman’s Sep 2 RWE/ADYEN adds, PUB.PA’s PepsiCo ~$1.7B win, Tata’s €14.10 IVG.MI tender opening Sep 7, Monday’s EUROB.AT Sep 21 Stoxx/SX7E inclusion, plus ECB Sep 10 on the calendar. EU tickers never repeated across the seven issues — oil majors gave way to utilities/payments, telco/agency, VOD/IVG, TKA/MT, then TEF/EUROB — so the week’s calls were diversified, not one-sided.
Vs last week: TEF.MC/EUROB.AT replaced Sunday’s steel pair and added a Sep 21 inclusion date, but PT-gap valuation and diversified calls are unchanged.
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| Penny / micro Underweight |
2 |
2 |
4 |
5 |
3.3 |
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penny_plays stayed watchlist-only all week: BFRI 5.0 and OTLK 4.5 never cleared the 6/10 buy bar, and Monday’s Labor Day issue said the screener was empty again. Every BFRI/OTLK thesis cited balance-sheet and dilution — not multiples — as the reason they stay below buy-tier, a quality gap rather than a cheap-entry read. BFRI’s Sep 28 Ameluz sBCC PDUFA sat on every catalyst calendar, including Monday; OTLK’s YE26 LYTENAVA / HCPCS path was the only other dated microcap binary. The same two names printed in all seven issues with streaks now at 10 (BFRI) and 10 (OTLK) — already-loud watchlist names, no new buy-tier idea.
Vs last week: Labor Day reprinted BFRI/OTLK at 5.0/4.5 watchlist-only — still no buy-tier print, crowding a rung louder on streak 10.
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| Commodities Overweight |
4 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
3.8 |
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WTI’s Hormuz premium persisted from last Monday ~$86.93 through Friday/Monday ~$91.48, with Tuesday’s USO +5.46% / BNO +5.15% spike, weekend tanker strikes, and US diesel near a record ~$5.85; USO stayed HOLD rather than fading. Gold was repeatedly capped by hike-odds/real-rate pressure while crude embeds a war premium the book refused to chase after the first add — Monday kept USO HOLD/no-add after a five-session climb and sent the fresh slot to SLX. Live Hormuz/VLCC strikes, weekend US–Iran tit-for-tat plus Sunday’s OPEC+ October hold, heat-driven gas burn, Friday NFP’s real-yield hit to bullion, and product-crack/diesel prints kept the commodity calendar dense. USO was already-held by Wednesday and later issues called the book oil-heavy — daily anti-rep rotation (UNG/SLV → USO/UGA → UNG/CPER → GDX/SIL → PPLT/URA → UGA/CANE → BNO/SLX) because crude was crowded.
Vs last week: Weekend tanker strikes re-upped BNO and added SLX, but USO remains HOLD — still the overweight oil sleeve.
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| Crypto Overweight |
3 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
3.5 |
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BTC chopped $77.6k–$80.9k and finished Monday ~$79.7k near last Monday’s $78.8k; ETH similarly ended ~$2.51k versus last Monday $2.47k — constructive but not a one-way trend. The week’s valuation read was ETF-flow versus price: Monday’s +$217M BTC rebound, midweek −$236M then +$101M repair, and ~$731M / +$175M on Sep 3–4 for a ~$987M BTC week (ETH ~$215M) — Labor Day kept both BUY because flows beat spot noise. No dated crypto event printed; the live catalysts were successive ETF-flow prints plus the same Sep 11 CPI / Sep FOMC macro gates. BTC and ETH appeared in every issue and by Friday/Sunday/Monday both were already-held BUY/no-add — consensus long both majors into CPI.
Vs last week: Monday restated the ~$987M BTC ETF week ended Sep 4 — flow overweight unchanged, still no-add.
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| FX Overweight |
4 |
3 |
5 |
4 |
4.0 |
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USD short-term seek versus EUR lasted the whole week (streak 4→10, score 7 except the Waller dip to 5 Thursday and a Labor Day 6) and Monday still leaned EUR→USD at conviction 6 after Friday’s hike-odds restore. JPY’s multi-year PPP undervaluation was noted but policy follow-through missing; USD long-term stayed neutral on twin deficits; EURUSD ~1.16 was a rates-gap level, not a cheap-EUR call. RBNZ Sep 2 (dovish hike, NZD seek→avoid), Friday NFP, Waller’s odds cut, plus still-dated ECB Sep 10, Sep 11 CPI, Sep 15–16 FOMC, and BoJ Sep 17–18 after the USDJPY ~160→156 squeeze. Every issue increased USD versus EUR and decreased or avoided JPY — a one-sided EUR-cash underweight of the home currency, now on a 10-session USD seek streak.
Vs last week: USD short-term score eased 7→6 on Labor Day but the seek streak hit 10 — still overweight USD vs EUR cash.
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| Rates / credit Underweight |
2 |
3 |
5 |
4 |
3.5 |
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Duration never caught a bid: the 10-year held ~4.76–4.80% (Monday 4.784%), the 2-year sat ~4.37% after hot NFP, and Anti-Fragile kept TLT at 0 every session — bond-price momentum stayed soft. HY OAS sat ~2.60–2.70 (too tight for a ~58–60% hike path per Friday/Monday credit risk) while 10-year ~4.78% offered carry versus EUR cash but not a TLT overweight. September FOMC hike-sticks was rank-1 risk all seven days (streak 4→10), gated by Sep 4 NFP (+162k), Sep 11 CPI, Sep 15–16 FOMC, ECB Sep 10, and BoJ Sep 17–18. The hike-and-stick risk and TLT=0 / cash-heavy Anti-Fragile weights repeated every issue — consensus underweight of long duration.
Vs last week: TLT still 0 into ECB/CPI/FOMC week and hike-odds eased only to ~58% — duration underweight unchanged.
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This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Do your own research before investing.
Morning Alpha • Generated Mon, 07 Sep 2026 10:05:00 GMT
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