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Capitalist Insider: Trump to seat Huang at Xi’s table on Thursday. Nvidia is already rising
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Bitcoin hits $85,229, the highest print since January
Bitcoin climbed as high as $85,229 on Monday, its strongest level since late January, as Strategy bought about $76 million of the cryptocurrency last week and crypto stocks jumped.
Bitwise declares crypto spring: Matt Hougan of Bitwise told CNBC the winter after October 2025’s record above $126,000 is over. Bitcoin is still down in 2026 but up more than 7% in 5 days.
Liquidations meet ETF inflows: Coinglass recorded nearly $658 million in crypto short liquidations over 24 hours, including more than $367 million in bitcoin. Spot bitcoin ETFs took in $433 million Friday.
Rules move without Clarity: The Senate last week blocked the Clarity Act, but the CFTC submitted proposed crypto-market rules to OIRA and the SEC opened a tokenized-stock pathway.
Strategy adds 950 bitcoin: Strategy’s filing showed 950 bitcoin bought last week for $75.7 million, or $79,670 each, lifting holdings to 846,000. Clear Street raised Coinbase to $224 from $204.
Capitalist Insider: Trump to seat Huang at Xi’s table on Thursday. Nvidia is already rising
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Scott Bessent: $30B-for-$30B tariff cuts now on Trump’s Xi table
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Sunday talks with He Lifeng successful and floated a 30-30-30 deal for non-critical goods as China confirmed Xi Jinping’s Sept. 23-25 state visit.
Trade board now live: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S.-China Board of Trade is now operationalized, grouping Chinese consumer and low-tech goods against U.S. energy, farm products, and medical devices.
AI incident channel opens: The sides discussed a U.S.-China AI Dialogue and a national-security notification channel for uncontrollable agents, non-state cyber actors, and biological risks, with a likely follow-up in Shenzhen.
Truce clock hits November: Bessent called the Nov. 10 end of the temporary trade truce a focal point, including Washington’s pause on higher reciprocal tariffs and China’s rare-earth and U.S. farm pledges.
Andrews greeting this week: Guo Jiakun said it is Xi’s first U.S. trip since 2023. Bessent said Trump will greet him at Joint Base Andrews. Altman, Huang, Dimon, and Fraser are expected at dinner.
Scott Bessent to AI labs: no liability shield from Trump
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday that AI developers “need to take responsibility for themselves,” rejecting a federal liability shield as President Donald Trump resists a regulatory crackdown.
Humans remain on hook: “It is humans who are responsible, not the AI,” Bessent said on Squawk Box when asked if he agrees with Trump’s opposition to an industry crackdown.
Rates tied to war: After 12 hours with He Lifeng, Bessent said rates should fall once the Iran war ends and oil is more supplied. The Fed last week raised its range to 3.75%–4%.
Odd couple warns Hill: MIT physicist Max Tegmark said a closed-door Senate briefing left him encouraged. A day earlier he introduced Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon, who both said humans should stay in charge.
FDA model for AI: Tegmark pitched an “FDA for AI” and warned Hugging Face-style breakouts by 700 OpenAI agents could become more frequent within 6 months to a year.
Oil slumps 5%. Yields dip under 5%. Stocks rally
U.S. stocks advanced Monday as West Texas Intermediate dropped about 3% to above $96 a barrel and the 10-year Treasury yield slipped to 4.963%, lifting risk assets.
Major averages move higher: The S&P 500 climbed 0.6%, the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.8%, and the Dow gained 307 points, or 0.6%, after the Dow’s 1.7% drop last week, its worst week since March.
Yields retreat from highs: The 10-year yield fell more than 3 basis points to 4.963% after last week’s 19-year high of 5.041%. German 10-year bunds and U.K. 10-year gilts each dropped 5 basis points.
Chip stocks lead bounce: Intel gained more than 6% and AMD added more than 4%. Ciena rose after Evercore ISI upgraded the stock to outperform and raised its price target to $550 from $375.
Merger names jump early: Paramount rose more than 5.8% and Warner Bros. Discovery jumped 7% after a report of settlement talks over a lawsuit blocking their combination.
Anthropic delays its IPO. OpenAI just mapped a $278B burn
Anthropic is pushing its IPO from October to November so it can show third-quarter results, while OpenAI forecasts $278 billion of negative free cash from 2026 through 2030.
Delay predates slowdown call: Sources told the Wall Street Journal the shift was decided before CEO Dario Amodei on Sept. 12 called for a slowdown in frontier AI model development.
Industry splits on pacing: OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceX’s Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis backed the idea. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and President Donald Trump dismissed it.
Revenue trails the spend: OpenAI expects sales to rise from $35 billion in 2026 to $350 billion in 2030, with $856 billion of outlays on AI computing and infrastructure alone.
More capital still needed: OpenAI had $122 billion in funds and is in talks on a raise valuing the company at $1.2 trillion. Altman said last week it would not go public in 2026.
Nscale files a $3B IPO after losing $1B in six months
U.K. AI cloud company Nscale filed an S-1 late Friday for a New York IPO seeking up to $3 billion at roughly a $30 billion valuation, lining up against CoreWeave and Nebius.
Bank group and ticker: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are lead bookrunners. The company plans to list on the NYSE under the ticker NSCL.
Payne spun out Arkon: CEO Josh Payne formed Nscale in 2024 from Arkon Energy’s bitcoin-mining data centers and now rents Nvidia-equipped servers built for AI workloads.
Hydro sites, then West: The firm started on European hydropower, especially in Norway, and is expanding in the U.S., U.K., Portugal, and Iceland.
Capacity still scaling up: Nscale reported 1.37 gigawatts of active and contracted power and plans for 10 gigawatts.
VW recalls 208,724 SUVs that can lose steering
Volkswagen Group of America is recalling 208,724 U.S. SUVs after NHTSA said a steering-rack mounting bolt can corrode and break, risking a loss of steering control.
Models and build windows: The recall covers certain 2018 Tiguan, 2018-2019 Atlas, and 2019-2021 Audi Q3 vehicles built with one steering-rack design. Other racks on those nameplates are not included.
Moisture corrodes the bolt: Moisture can reach the right-side mounting bolt and corrode it. If the bolt head fractures, the rack may hang from a single point until the housing breaks.
Agency flags crash risk: NHTSA said a broken steering-rack housing can cause a loss of steering control and raise the crash risk. Volkswagen and Audi said they know of no linked crashes, fires, injuries, or deaths.
Dealers replace bolts free: Dealers will replace the bolt with a polymer-coated, corrosion-resistant part at no cost. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed Nov. 10.
Intel and Arm jump 12% as Meta’s Muse lights up CPUs
Intel and Arm Holdings rose early Monday as investors tied the popularity of Meta Platforms’ Muse AI agent to stronger demand for central processing units.
Year-to-date Intel surge: Intel stock was up 194% this year through Friday’s close before the Monday bounce.
Arm joins the move: Arm Holdings was indicated 11.92% higher as traders bet Muse-style agents need more general-purpose compute, not only GPUs.
Muse is the trigger: Barron’s said Muse’s popularity is what lit the CPU-demand trade in both names.