Pre-Market News Roundup for US Stocks: CPI Surges, Boosting Rate Hike Odds; Qualcomm-Samsung Wafer Foundry Talks Stall; The 'Big Short' Closes Out Nvidia Put Options

Pre-market key news for US stocks: US August CPI accelerated, boosting rate hike expectations; markets now price in a ~90% chance of a Fed rate hike next week, with two more hikes fully expected by year-end. Global markets remained strong post-CPI release, with all three major US stock index futures extending gains of over 1% each. Spot gold rebounded more than $70 from its post-CPI low, breaking above $4,360/oz after hitting a trough near $4,290/oz earlier. Bitcoin dipped briefly before recovering to $78,000, while Ethereum surged past $2,500. SpaceX’s CFO revealed the firm recently secured a large AI computing power hosting deal, set to bring ~$1.1 billion in monthly incremental revenue; the company is “fully confident” of hitting its $100 billion annual recurring revenue (ARR) target by year-end. Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics’ new foundry talks hit a stalemate over price disagreements. Industry sources said Qualcomm’s application processor (AP) project using Samsung Foundry’s 2nm process is likely delayed until next year. Microsoft is turning down some AI and cloud service orders due to computing power shortages, and plans to expand its global data center capacity from ~12 gigawatts (GW) now to over 38 GW by 2032. “Big Short” protagonist Michael Burry closed out his December-expiring put options on Nvidia and Palantir, citing a desire to hold more cash to assess evolving market conditions in the fall. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said cybersecurity could be AI’s next major application area, as AI models accelerating automatic programming are disrupting the cybersecurity industry.