Amber Kanwar

Anchor, Reporter

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Close your eyes and picture Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. What is he wearing? (Don’t worry, this is a PG question). You probably pictured the grey-haired executive in his signature black leather jacket. Bloomberg has a great piece this morning on everything you didn’t want to know about what is becoming his signature look. First, he is very committed to it. He wears it on most occasions regardless of the weather. Second, we don’t know what kind it is. Third, other people want it. There are several companies that sell the Jensen Huang Black Leather jacket – some for as low as US$99! Move over Steve Jobs black turtleneck and Mark Zuckerberg hoodie, there is a new look in town!
 
Here are five things you need to know this morning:
 
Give it another go: Futures have a mildly positive bent this morning ahead of a lot of key catalysts. The S&P 500 managed to bounce yesterday. A rally in oil was unable to save the TSX which put in its seventh negative session out of the last eight. Ten per cent of the S&P 500 hit a 52-week low, that’s the highest since October 2022. While the TSX is only down about six per cent from its most recent peak, under the hood the damage looks worse. Nearly 80 per cent of TSX composite stocks are down 10 per cent from their 52-week high (the mark of official correction). Today rates continue to sell off with the U.S. 10-year yield hitting 4.6 per cent – another 16-year high. There is the looming threat of a government shutdown as Republicans squabble amongst themselves about funding for Ukraine and illegal immigration. The big implications for the market will be on growth, the delay of key economic data which will complicate the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision-making and of course, the reputational damage from yet another example of fiscal disarray in the U.S. Today we will hear from four Fed speakers, including two dovish voters and Jerome Powell speaking at 4 p.m. ET. Lot’s for him to address. Nike reports tonight and is trading at 11-month low. Blackberry and Aritzia (trading around a three-year low) are also out with earnings after the close.
 
Micron melt: Shares of chipmaker Micron are under pressure in the pre-market, but I’ll watch for how it does when the markets open. Investors are reacting to its forecast for a bigger loss than expected. The backdrop is that PC and smartphone makers have struggled and are pulling back on Micron’s chips. Micron has seen five quarters in a row on of sales declines, but the forecast suggests sales will start to grow again in the next quarter. I will watch for how that supports the stock today.
 
Upward dog: Shares of Peloton are rallying in the pre-market after announcing a deal with Lululemon. Peloton will now be offering content for Lululemon’s struggling Mirror business. Lululemon will now make co-branded clothes that Peloton will sell. The Mirror was a business Lulu bought during the pandemic in 2020 for $500 million. It is basically a mirror version of a Peloton – instead of a bike you exercise in front of an interactive mirror. And it has done about as well as Peloton has since the pandemic – Lulu has written off the business entirely and plan to stop making the product by the end of the year. While Peloton shares are rallying, Lululemon shares aren’t doing much on the news.
 
Doubling down: Shares of meme fan-favourite GameStop are rallying after announcing that hedge fund billionaire Ryan Cohen will be the new CEO. This comes as GameStop has seen two CEOs come and go in the last three years. Cohen was already chair and first took a stake in 2020 right before the company took off as a meme obsession. But in some ways, being a meme stock is easy, and running a meme business is something entirely different. Especially when that business is about trying to sell video games in physical stores at a time when all those things are widely available on the world wide web.
 
Feeding the ducks: Aurora Cannabis is raising nearly C$34 million in a bought deal. The stock recently hit an all-time low and has shed 34 per cent in value this year. These are not the conditions that companies typically like to issue additional stock, but marijuana companies are a different breed. They need cash to pay down debt and are taking advantage of a recent rally from that all-time low (the stock is up 50 per cent since then). We will see how well the deal is received. It is priced at 0.73 per share which is a 20 per cent discount to yesterday’s close.
 
Notable guests

The U.S. SAFER Banking Act was approved yesterday by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee; it will now be sent to a vote on the Senate floor in October or November. We’re speaking to the Canopy Growth CEO David Klein at 11:30 a.m. EDT on how he continues to expect to turn his company around, and what potential passage of the SAFER Banking Act might do to help his industry.