Paul Klein

Muse pushes Meta to the top of the App Store and reignites Wall Street's enthusiasm

Meta Platforms is getting an especially strong reception for Muse, its new artificial intelligence agent launched on September 8 in the United States. Unlike traditional chatbots, Muse can act directly on a user's behalf, including planning a trip or making purchases after being connected to their apps and personal accounts. Ten days after launch, the app climbed to the top of the US App Store, ahead of ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, with more than 730,000 downloads, according to Sensor Tower.

September 22, 2026 at 02:42 am

Late September remains a trap for Wall Street

Selling pressure on US stocks could intensify further through the end of September, according to Citadel Securities, which says several technical factors continue to tilt clearly toward downside risk despite the pullback already seen in the indexes.

September 21, 2026 at 03:23 am

Meta steps up subscriptions after a promising start

Meta is ramping up its paid-subscription strategy after encouraging early results on Instagram and Facebook. According to Appfigures data cited by TechCrunch, Instagram's global daily revenue averaged $1.2m during the week of September 9, up 475% in one week, while Facebook's climbed 143% to $528,000 a day.

September 21, 2026 at 03:21 am

The SEC Paves the Way for Tokenized Stocks After the Clarity Act Failed

Just two days after the Clarity Act failed in the Senate, the SEC chose to speed up the tokenization of US markets by adopting an "Innovation Exemption". This move will allow certain platforms to trade blockchain-based tokenized representations of US-listed shares, bringing Wall Street a step closer to continuous trading, potentially 24/7.

September 18, 2026 at 03:30 am

Markets price in three more rate hikes after Warsh's press conference

Kevin Warsh used his press conference to further toughen his assessment of inflation, while offering a clearer rationale for the rate increase decided on Wednesday.

September 17, 2026 at 02:53 am

The Fed resumes its rate-hike cycle as inflation is still high

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates by 25bp, taking its target range to 3.75%-4%, a move in line with expectations after nearly two years on hold. The decision was unanimous, even though only Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari and Lorie Logan had already called for a similar increase at the last meeting in July.

September 17, 2026 at 02:50 am

Rate hikes to stop rates from rising

With rates continuing to climb, central banks need to act.

September 15, 2026 at 02:27 pm

AI: fewer data centers, more breathing space for rest of the market?

US stock indexes are under pressure Monday after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing the pace of new AI development to curb risks tied to rapidly expanding model capabilities, a call that drew moderate support from Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

September 15, 2026 at 03:31 am

Washington to sanction major bank on Monday over ties to Iran

The Trump administration is preparing to ramp up financial pressure on Iran once again, after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington will sanction a major bank on Monday, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, over its dealings with Tehran. The announcement, initially expected on Friday, was postponed due to the September 11 commemorations.

September 14, 2026 at 02:48 am

Oracle jumps 7% after 121% growth in cloud infrastructure

US enterprise software and cloud infrastructure giant Oracle surged about 7% in after-hours trading yesterday after beating expectations for Q1 2027, driven by a sharp acceleration in its cloud infrastructure business, notably for AI workloads.

September 11, 2026 at 03:07 am

Adobe raises targets, but market remains cautious

Adobe has posted Q3 results that are slightly above expectations, but the stock's response was muted, with shares of the US maker of creative and professional software largely flat in after-hours trading, despite another double-digit increase in its key metrics.

September 11, 2026 at 03:02 am

United States: the dollar could be the first casualty of bond-yield manipulation

The question is worth asking as the US Treasury has already increased, for the second month in a row, the size of its Treasury buyback program, even though that increase does not yet amount to an explicit yield-cap policy. Federal debt now exceeds $40 trillion, debt service is already one of the biggest items in the US budget, and no real return to fiscal orthodoxy appears on the cards, quite the contrary.

September 11, 2026 at 03:01 am

OpenAI Takes Aim at Wall Street Junior Analysts

OpenAI is stepping up its push into finance with the launch of ChatGPT for Financial Services, an optimized version for banks, investment firms and research teams. Developed with Morgan Stanley and Evercore, the service combines its latest AI model with financial data from sources including LSEG, PitchBook, Daloopa, Crunchbase and Quartr.

September 11, 2026 at 02:57 am

Copper keeps setting records amid supply tensions

The 3-month London Metal Exchange contract hit a new all-time high this week at $14,728 a ton, while US futures also set a high of $6.89 a pound on Wednesday.

September 09, 2026 at 03:27 pm

The US Treasury Triples Its Debt Buybacks and Reignites the Controversy

The US Treasury will triple the usual size of its long-term bond buybacks, with an operation that could reach $6bn on Thursday across maturities between 10 and 20 years. The stated goal remains to improve liquidity in a market under strain, as the 10-year Treasury yield has climbed back to its highest level in nearly three years at 4.85%, and the 30-year has reached its highest since 2007 above 5.2%.

September 09, 2026 at 03:24 pm

The trade standoff between Washington and Ottawa escalates

Canada brought retaliatory tariffs into force on Tuesday on roughly $20 billion of imports from the United States, with surcharges ranging from 15% to 50% on steel, electronics, furniture and clothing. Ottawa is responding to the 50% tariffs imposed in August by Washington on a comparable amount of Canadian products.

September 09, 2026 at 02:40 am

US jobs report: two indicators to watch more closely than NFP and the unemployment rate

The US economy created three times more jobs than expected in August (+162,000), while the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1% for a second straight month. The US economy still looks solid, partly supported by massive investment in AI, but these two employment indicators are not perfect.

September 08, 2026 at 02:36 am

Trump Threatens a Trade War to Pressure the Fed

The US president sharply escalated his rhetoric against the Federal Reserve on Friday, minutes after the release of a jobs report that came in well above expectations.

September 07, 2026 at 02:59 am

France leads the world in AI adoption

A Goldman Sachs study puts France at the top amongst major economies in adopting artificial intelligence, as its effects on employment begin to show up in some sectors without, at this stage, triggering a broad-based shock.

September 07, 2026 at 02:38 am

After obesity, pharma seeks its next mega-blockbuster in sleep

Will Orexins be the next mega-blockbusters in neurology? After GLP-1s in obesity, the pharmaceutical industry may have a new class of drugs capable of transforming a market that has long remained niche.

September 04, 2026 at 03:39 am

After the spring boom, US consumer spending back down to earth

After several months of robust growth, Costco's US sales show a clear return to normal in August, a sign that consumer momentum is starting to cool.

September 03, 2026 at 03:22 pm