Morning Brew September 19 2025

Good Morning, 

The fact that Nvidia took a share in Intel caused Intel's share price to make the biggest gain since 1987, with nearly 23%.

These news and the rate cut caused equities to trade friendly and to new records as the S&P rose 0.5%, the Nasdaq 0.94%, and the Dow 0.27%. Intel and Crowdstrike were the most noteworthy shares.

The US 500 is trading at 6640, up 12.7% year to date. Volumes were strong at 19 billion shares traded. The USD Index has calmed at 97.37, EURUSD is at 1.175, the Yen 147.44, and GBPUSD at 1.3550 after the Bank of Japan rate decision. Gold and Silver rose to 3660 and 42.35, while Bitcoin and Ethereum are at 117k and 4550.

Charu Comments on the Intel stake taken by Nvidia yesterday.:

• A new alliance reshapes AI computing: Nvidia’s $5B investment in Intel is not just financial support—it puts Intel back at the center of the AI ecosystem by making its CPUs a core part of Nvidia’s GPU platforms.
• Winners and losers emerge: Intel gains credibility, Nvidia expands its reach, and supply chain players like TSMC, SK Hynix, Micron, ASML, Synopsys, and Japan’s Tokyo Electron benefit from rising complexity. On the other hand, AMD and Arm risk losing share as Intel’s CPUs get tightly integrated with Nvidia.
• Strategic implications go beyond business: The deal reflects a broader U.S. effort to consolidate semiconductor leadership against China, while also planting seeds for Intel Foundry to become a long-term alternative to TSMC.

Headlines:

The Philly Fed Index came much stronger than expected, indicating a much better production environment in the Atlantic region than expected. Instead of the 2.5 expected, the number came at 23.2. Any number above 0 shows growth.

Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will seek an agreement on Friday to help keep the video app TikTok online in the U.S.

The Nikkei turned red as the yen firms after the BOJ decision. The Bank of Japan kept interest rates steady as expected, but in a split decision with two of the nine board members voting for a hike. Donald Trump's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to let him move ahead with firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

SoftBank Group will lay off nearly 20% of its Vision Fund team acc to Reuters.

For today, the key events will be political and the large quarterly expiry of futures and options. The scheduled talk between President Xi and Donald Trump will be closely watched. There is little exciting in terms of data; next week will be a busy one again with the Swiss National Bank and key US inflation data.

Trade safely and have a great weekend.

Friday Sept 19

• Quadruple Witching Friday
• Trump Xi phonecall
• Japan CPI
• UK Retail Sales