Good morning,

Wall Street shrugged off shutdown drama yesterday, with stocks climbing on the back of another Nvidia rally and broad AI strength.

Not exactly breaking news anymore, but gold stole the show again, ripping to a record $3,860 as the dollar and Treasuries slipped. 

Even the Swiss are trying to turn bullion into a bargaining chip, floating a U.S. refinery offer to dodge Trump’s tariffs.

Meanwhile, Cleveland’s Beth Hammack warned inflation is still alive and well, calling it “a challenging time for monetary policy” with no jobs report in sight if the government shuts down.

And in a market that loves deals, Electronic Arts just got scooped up in the largest leveraged buyout in U.S. history.

Shutdown brinkmanship, gold mania, AI-fueled rallies, and the biggest gaming buyout ever... it’s a lot to start the week.

Let’s dig in.

Quote of the day 

Five things to know before opening bell

📈 Nvidia rally lifts Nasdaq

Shutdown fears couldn’t stop stocks to start the week, with all three major indexes finishing higher, led by the Nasdaq’s nearly half-point climb. Nvidia rebounded about 2% after doubts over a massive infrastructure deal with OpenAI, while Micron jumped more than 4% and AMD added over 1% to keep the AI trade humming.

🚫 Shutdown could nix jobs report

Today’s deadline for a federal funding deal looms, and Trump’s talks with top Democrats haven’t produced a breakthrough. Without an agreement, a shutdown would freeze a wide range of government services, including Friday’s all-important September jobs report. The Labor Department’s contingency plan: “BLS will suspend all operations.” That means no new unemployment data for central bankers trying to balance inflation and jobs.

🥇 Gold surges, dollar slips

Safe-haven demand sent gold to a record $3,860 an ounce Monday. The rally came alongside a softer greenback, with the U.S. dollar index slipping 0.2% to 97.94. Treasuries are also down, with the 10-year yield edging down from 4.19% at the end of last week to 4.14%.

🇨🇭 Swiss float gold-for-tariff deal

Looking to blunt Trump’s 39% tariffs, Swiss trade officials are dangling their gold refining expertise as leverage. The idea is to shift more refinery activity to U.S. soil, creating jobs and smoothing America’s gold supply chain in exchange for lighter duties. No formal proposal has been made, but Bern says it has “optimized its offer” to Washington in hopes of a quick deal.

🎬 Media stocks split on movie tariff threat

Trump doubled down on his plan for a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, calling it a security issue as more productions move abroad. Critics warn the move could spark retaliation and hurt Hollywood’s global dominance. Media stocks barely flinched: Disney rose 1.15%, Warner Bros. Discovery fell 1.3%, and Netflix slipped after early gains.

₿ Bitcoin is back, but will ETH keep stealing the show?

It was touch and go for Bitcoin this month as the world's biggest crypto dragged the broader crypto market lower and sparked fears the bull run was over. 

But a weekend surge flipped the script, with BTC rebounding to around $114,000 yesterday. The question now is what’s in store for crypto in the final quarter of 2025.

😨 Fear to neutral

Heavy liquidations earlier this month — especially from long-term holders — pushed Bitcoin below $110,000 in a couple of sharp dips. 

Bears looked firmly in control until this week’s rebound, which lifted the Crypto Fear & Greed Index from a gloomy 37 to a neutral 50 overnight. 

That shift suggests investors see some stability returning, though the neutral read also leaves plenty of room for interpretation.

🐂 vs 🐻

Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz is leaning bullish, saying he bought a “shackload” of crypto and sees room for BTC, ETH, SOL, and HYPE to keep climbing... especially if Trump follows through on installing a dovish Fed chair. 

“If he picks a dovey enough person, there’s going to be a moment [where] gold skyrockets, Bitcoin skyrockets,” he said.

But skeptics see shades of 2021, when a similar setup preceded a brutal sell-off. Analyst Reflection argues Bitcoin could tumble as much as 50%, sliding to $60K or lower if history repeats. 

With ETFs adding a layer of maturity to the market, most projections see BTC recovering and dragging top altcoins higher with it.

🌐 ETH’s moment of truth

For now, Ethereum has been the standout. BTC gained about 7% in Q3, while ETH surged 68%.

History shows Q3 is often Bitcoin’s weakest, but the bigger debate is whether ETH can sustain that lead into Q4.

ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood isn’t buying the flippening hype. She calls Bitcoin “the global monetary system” and notes it’s the only layer-1 blockchain never hacked.

“That’s why the monetary system is based on it. And it is the first of its kind in a new asset class,” she said.

So while ETH has momentum on its side, BTC still holds the crown.

📊 Here's why some Fed officials see 'challenging time' ahead

Actions may speak louder than words, but Fed officials aren’t exactly whispering in between policy meetings. 

Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack offered a blunt reality check yesterday, warning of a “challenging time for monetary policy” as inflation refuses to cool.

🗣️ A few key quotes

In a CNBC interview, Hammack laid out her concerns:

• On inflation: “We have been missing our mandate on the inflation side, our objective of 2%, for more than four and a half years … I continue to see pressure in the headline, in the core, and particularly in services.”

• On the recent rate cut: Without directly criticizing this month’s quarter-point trim, Hammack said policymakers are under heavy strain from both sides of the mandate, with inflation sticky and jobs slipping.

• On the path forward: “When I balance those two sides … I think we really need to maintain a restrictive stance of policy so that we can get inflation back down to our goal.”

She added that the labor market still looks “reasonably healthy,” though Friday’s jobs report could stay locked away if a government shutdown drags on.

📊 What’s next

Markets get a fresh batch of signals today. 

Chicago Fed’s Austan Goolsbee and vice chair Philip Jefferson are both scheduled to speak, alongside August job openings, consumer confidence, the Chicago Business Barometer, and July’s S&P Case-Shiller home price index.

💰 EA’s takeover foreshadows more deals

Electronic Arts was one of last week’s earliest winners, and its sudden stock jump is a clear signal: the M&A market is alive and kicking.

💰 Deal details

Silver Lake Management and partners announced a $55 billion deal to take EA private, paying shareholders $210 each in an all-cash arrangement. 

That makes this the largest leveraged buyout in U.S. history. E

EA stock reacted immediately, jumping double digits when rumors circulated and climbing nearly 5% Monday as the deal was confirmed. 

🔍 Analysts see more deals ahead 

The EA move isn’t an outlier. For the second time ever, global third-quarter M&A volume topped $1 trillion, and Goldman predicts deal activity to rise 15% in 2026. 

Their analysts track nearly 50 high-probability candidates, whose valuations have already outperformed the equal-weight S&P 1500 by 7 percentage points since early September.

According to Goldman strategist David Kostin, “accelerating U.S. growth, improving CEO confidence, and a rising equity market” are driving this bullish outlook.

Morgan Stanley’s Tom Miles adds that pent-up demand is ready to fuel a wave of deals, with many companies having waited on the sidelines due to 2025’s regulatory uncertainty. Now, he says, they’re “ready to act.”

⚠️ Smaller deals slow for now

Opportunities aren’t distributed evenly because smaller and mid-sized companies are more sensitive to economic and political uncertainty.

“Mid-sized companies take more time to adjust to change, which is restraining the number of smaller flow deals,” says Bank of America’s Steve Baronoff. 

Larger corporations, he notes, are better positioned to navigate uncertainty and seize favorable conditions.

Miles expects a “slow burn” rather than a sudden M&A surge, driven by the sheer number of companies that need exits. He thinks this should last for the next couple of years.