Tom Lee: Crypto Market Has Entered a Bull Market Phase

Ahead of the upcoming release of the U.S. September non-farm payrolls (NFP) report, prediction market traders are betting that job growth will exceed the consensus forecast of Wall Street economists. Data from Kalshi shows the market assigns a nearly 60% probability to U.S. September NFP gains exceeding 90,000 jobs, and roughly a 50% chance of gains topping 100,000 jobs. However, Wall Street investment banks’ outlooks for September NFP are broadly cautious. Goldman Sachs projects 80,000 new non-farm jobs in September, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.1%. Bank of America, meanwhile, forecasts just 60,000 new jobs for the month, including 50,000 in the private sector. These forecasts indicate that Wall Street banks are not broadly betting on a sharp rebound in September employment; some institutions even project job gains significantly below the market consensus, highlighting a clear divergence between prediction markets and traditional macroeconomic forecasts. On Tuesday, after New York Fed President John Williams downplayed the urgency of further interest rate hikes, federal funds futures data showed the market’s probability of another rate hike next month fell from around 71% to 50%. The September jobs report could be particularly critical to breaking this deadlock in rate hike pricing.

Beating AI News Flash: Meta has added a suite of small business-focused features and connectors to its existing Muse AI tool. Alexandr Wang also announced 22 connectors launching the same day, including QuickBooks, Shopify, Stripe, Canva, Figma, Slack, Zoom, GitHub, and Vercel. Once connected, Muse can pull data from Facebook, Instagram, Meta Ads accounts, as well as storefronts, ledgers, design tools, and collaboration platforms. Small businesses can leverage it to analyze sales and ad performance, build growth plans, flag unusual spending, manage inventory, and draft marketing content. The features already address real demand: Meta AI Product Vice President Vishal Shah revealed that roughly one-third of early Muse users had already connected some form of business account. Meta had been testing these capabilities, and is now officially integrating them into Muse. For actions involving publishing content, sending messages, or making payments, Muse still requires user approval. Businesses can also connect custom connectors not yet supported by Meta.

Beating AI News Flash: McDonald’s is using AI to help its stores price burgers. A Reuters investigation found that its “pricing engine” continuously analyzes millions of daily transactions at nearly 14,000 U.S. McDonald’s locations, while also referencing public prices of nearby competitors like Wendy’s and Burger King to estimate how much local customers are “willing to pay,” then generating an “optimal price” recommendation for each item at every store. The system is also used in some overseas markets. AI recommendations are expected to widen existing price gaps between McDonald’s outlets. Reuters found in Fresno, California, that two McDonald’s locations about 3.2 kilometers apart sold the same Big Mac for $5.69 and $6.89 respectively, a 21% difference. However, Reuters could not confirm whether this gap was directly caused by AI suggestions. Unlike Uber’s real-time demand-based dynamic pricing, the AI system analyzes sales and competitor data continuously to provide periodic price proposals to each store; the final price is still decided by franchisees. The recommendations do not always call for hikes—some items have instead been suggested for cuts in recent months. McDonald’s says the tool is only for reference, but five franchisees told Reuters the company closely tracks whether they deviate from the recommended prices. Since this year, franchisees have also been required to “actively cooperate” with McDonald’s-approved pricing consultants and tools, a requirement incorporated into new business standards.

According to Bitget Market data, South Korea’s KOSPI index closed down 32.77 points on Wednesday, September 30, with a 0.48% drop to 6838.04 points. The KOSPI ended the third quarter 19.3% lower, marking its largest quarterly decline since the first quarter of 2020. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closed up 1272.45 points on the same day, rising 1.94% to 66753.72 points.

Nvidia’s deployment of co-packaged optics (CPO) is progressing faster than market expectations, driving further growth in demand for optical interconnects in AI data centers. As a key player in Nvidia’s advanced optics supply chain, Lumentum is seen as a potential direct beneficiary. GF Securities’ latest research report projects Lumentum’s CPO laser revenue will rise from $427 million in 2027 to $750 million in 2028; over the same period, its near-packaged optics (NPO) laser revenue is expected to jump from $501 million to $2.55 billion, with the firm reiterating a "Buy" rating on Lumentum. Meanwhile, Citigroup recently raised Lumentum’s price target from $1,200 to $1,400, further boosting market expectations for growth in its AI optical communications business, leading to varying degrees of gains across the entire optical communications sector. According to TradingBeats monitoring, the LITE perpetual contract on Hyperliquid is currently trading at $972, up approximately 6% in 24 hours.

According to GMGN market data, the platform token STONK of Solana-based token launch platform StonkFun currently has a market capitalization of approximately $236 million, with a 24-hour rise of 27%, trading at $0.291, and a 24-hour trading volume of around $29.8 million.