Hashett: Not Many Reasons to Keep Rates Unchanged

US President Trump stated that the US GDP growth rate could reach 14%, 15%, 16% or even 20%. Even with such rapid economic expansion, this should not be a reason for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. He claimed that "success in growth will not trigger inflation" and demanded that the US have "the lowest interest rates in the world". The US July PCE price index rose 3.7% year-on-year, still above the Fed's 2% inflation target. Markets widely expect the FOMC to raise interest rates in September. Data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that since 1947, the US real GDP annualized quarterly growth rate has hit or exceeded 20% only once: the 34.9% rebound in the third quarter of 2020 after the end of pandemic lockdowns. The US real GDP annualized growth rate in the second quarter of 2026 stood at 1.5%, down from 2.1% in the first quarter. Trump also said he has great respect for Fed Chair Walsh, believing that he "will do what needs to be done" on interest rate matters. Walsh recently noted that if inflation cannot be confirmed to be falling back toward the 2% target, the Fed "will have work to do". (Jinshi)

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), cryptocurrency-related stocks rose broadly after the U.S. stock market closed. Among them: Circle (CRCL) gained 9.67%, BitMine (BMNR) rose 6.55%, Coinbase (COIN) increased 5.31%, SharpLink (SBET) climbed 5.24%, American Bitcoin (ABTC) advanced 4.94%, Gemini (GEMI) rose 4.65%, and Strategy (MSTR) gained 4.42%.

According to Iran's Press TV, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior military commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, stated that amid ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Iran, Iran's top strategic priority is to build maximum deterrence, rather than restarting military conflicts or negotiating with the enemy. Naqdi said that after approximately six months of war, Iran is considering shifting to a more offensive phase of military confrontation targeting the U.S. and Israel. He added: "All the warfare we have conducted so far has been conventional, and we have not yet entered the phase of asymmetric warfare; asymmetric warfare means waging war on Wall Street, in Manhattan, and anywhere, at any time. Most incumbent Iranian commanders today tend to and prefer an offensive mindset." Naqdi also noted that all weapons production facilities damaged in recent conflicts have been rebuilt in highly secure locations, and are now operating with new advanced technologies at higher productivity levels. (Jinshi)

According to BIT (bit.com) market data, US stocks closed lower across the board on Monday, with the three major indexes all declining: the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.7%, the S&P 500 index fell 0.33%, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.12%. The storage sector led gains, with SanDisk (SNDK) rising 5.50%, Micron Technology (MU) up 2.77%, SK Hynix (SKHY) increasing 2.20%; Western Digital (WDC) fell 1.94%, Seagate Technology (STX) down 0.17%. The Neocloud sector saw mixed performance: Galaxy Digital (GLXY) gained 5.99%, IREN up 4.70%, Cipher Digital (CIFR) rising 2.18%; TeraWulf (WULF) dropped 1.43%, Nebius (NBIS) down 1.37%. Most semiconductor stocks advanced, with Qualcomm (QCOM) climbing 3.83%, NVIDIA (NVDA) up 1.36%, Arm increasing 1.20%, and AMD gaining 1.10%. Optical communication stocks were mixed: Astera Labs (ALAB) rose 2.59%, Lumentum (LITE) up 2.21%, Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) gaining 1.37%; Credo (CRDO) fell 2.82%, Marvell Technology down 2.29%.

Beating AI Express News: According to a Wall Street Journal report, sources familiar with the matter disclosed that Anthropic has signed a $35 billion cloud computing agreement with Lambda, a cloud service provider backed by Nvidia. The relevant data center is located in Nueces County, Texas, built by Bitcoin miner and data center developer Hut 8. Nvidia has signed an agreement with Hut 8 to lock in computing capacity and will directly hold the data center lease. Under the transaction, Lambda will install chips purchased from Nvidia in the data center built by Hut 8, then provide cloud computing services to Anthropic. It remains unclear how much Lambda will pay Nvidia for data center usage. This arrangement allows Lambda to secure a large contract with Anthropic without procuring its own data center space, while helping Anthropic access Nvidia’s computing resources. Earlier this year, Anthropic faced tight computing power supply, and this month it also signed a $45 billion deal with another Nvidia-backed cloud service provider, Nscale, to rent Nvidia computing power at its West Virginia data center. Hut 8 previously disclosed that its 700-megawatt campus in Texas has been granted a 15-year full lease by a high-investment-grade company; the facility is valued at $20 billion and will be used to deploy Nvidia chips.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview at the White House on Monday local time: "A large number of vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz last night. On average, 30 vessels transit the strait every night, and a huge volume of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz." When talking about how the situation will develop in the future, Trump stated: "We may strike Iran. Let's wait and see. I think the Iranians themselves don't even know who their leader is. No one knows who Iran's leader is. Iran is a failed country." Trump also addressed interest rates: "Interest rates are currently too high. I have great respect for Federal Reserve Chair Walsh, and he will do what he needs to do." (Source: Jin10)