Oracle's $7.4 billion infrastructure quarter, its $26 billion backlog add, and the $23 billion of cash that arrived before the buildings did; Adobe's beat-and-raise that the tape read as a soft guide and a CEO in transition; a four-day losing streak, the longest since March, built on a 10-year that closed at its highest since 2023 and a 2-year at its highest in two years; oil settling above $107 with the energy stocks red; a 30-year auction the world bought and a buyback the Treasury didn't finish; the book, with eight rows settled today — six won, two lost — and tomorrow's CPI, which decides whether the crowd's 70 percent hike is a price or a mistake.* **By Nicholas Thomas · Thursday, September 10, 2026 · filed 6:40 PM ET — TrendyVest. Not investment advice. TrendyVest and its writers may own securities discussed here.
A close is sworn in here only when two feeds carry the same number; everything else is a stamp with its source, and the Premarket Edge finishes the swearing-in.** --- **THE LEDGER, SWORN AND UNSWORN.** The S&P 500 closed at **7,591.70, down 44.66 points, six-tenths of a percent**. The Associated Press and Investrade's Market Review agree on it, to the rounding, so it's sworn. It's the fourth straight loss, and Investrade says that's the longest streak since March.
The Dow finished at **52,064.10, down 316.56**, and the Nasdaq at **26,081.72, down 171.62**, both on the same two feeds. Yahoo's closing page had different numbers for all three — 7,588, 51,981, 26,084 — so I'm printing the pair that agrees and telling you a third feed didn't. The Russell 2000 is the one I can't swear to tonight: 2,890 on Investrade, 2,888.47 on Yahoo, down about 1.1 percent either way.
Tomorrow. The VIX closed above 17 for the first time in 28 sessions, per Investrade. The 10-year closed at **4.95 percent on the AP's count and 4.943 on Investrade's**, from 4.835 on Wednesday.
Eleven basis points in one day, and the highest since October 2023. The 2-year finished at 4.55, which Investrade calls the highest in more than two years, from 4.423 at Wednesday's close on Reuters. The 30-year: 5.35, up six basis points, the highest since June 2007 on Investrade's count and above the 5.33 that Euronews had called the 2007 high when it printed in August.
The Fed's own H.15 with Wednesday's 10-year came out at 4:15; I couldn't load it before filing, so the one row that grades on it waits for the morning. Oil settled, and I'll give it to you the way the rule requires — one feed, one pair, then a second feed on both numbers: **Brent's November contract at $107.63, up 6.34 percent, beside WTI's October at $102.48, up 6.69**, per Bloomberg's wire on Rigzone and Investrade's table. A **$5.15 spread**.
Brent briefly topped $108 for the first time since May, per the AP. Gold settled at $4,407.30, down $53.40, on Investrade; Yahoo's late stamp had it at $4,374.80, down 1.9 percent. Silver lost 5.4 percent to $64.93.
That's the first digit of the day, again: gold down one to two percent on a day the Houthis took a Red Sea port and the Journal reported Iran is building missiles. The tape ranked the Fed above the missiles by eleven basis points on the 2-year, and it did it before the CPI even printed. **ONE — ORACLE PRINTED THE SEVEN.** Lily's deep dive on Tuesday said the whole quarter came down to one number. Not the $19 billion.
The seven. She ran the company's own cloud guide through the arithmetic and got an infrastructure range of $7.1 to $7.5 billion, and said everything else was noise. Here's what came out at 4:05, from the release on Oracle's investor site, confirmed by StockTitan's copy.
Revenue **$19.3 billion, up 30 percent**, against a consensus of about $19.14. Non-GAAP earnings **$1.92**, against $1.74. Cloud revenue **$11.6 billion, up 62 percent** — the guide was 58 to 64, so a hair above the middle.
Cloud infrastructure, OCI, **$7.4 billion, up 121 percent**. To be exact, $7.388 billion, which is the top of Lily's range and $1.6 billion more than the $5.8 billion it printed one quarter ago. Applications $4.2 billion, up 10 percent, which is exactly the assumption her arithmetic used.
Software, the old license line, $5.5 billion, down 3 percent, and it missed — the one business the old Oracle still owns went the wrong way. Remaining performance obligations **$664 billion**, up $209 billion on the year but up only **$26 billion on the quarter**, after $85 billion of additions the quarter before. More than $30 billion of AI cloud contracts booked. 850 megawatts of capacity delivered and more than 300,000 GPUs.
GAAP operating margin 35 percent, from 29. Operating cash flow **$23.1 billion, up 184 percent**. Capital expenditures **$28.5 billion**, from $8.5 billion a year ago.
Free cash flow **negative $5.4 billion**. Net proceeds from the at-the-market stock program, $19.9 billion — the $20 billion equity raise the crowd fined the stock 8.5 percent for in June is finished. Interest expense $1.43 billion, up 55 percent.
Diluted shares up 3.1 percent. And the guide: second-quarter revenue up 30 to 34 percent, cloud up 65 to 71 in dollars, earnings of $1.85 to $1.93; the full year at least $90 billion of revenue and $8.10 of earnings, a nickel more than June; and, per CFO Hilary Maxson as carried by Traders Agency, "full-year capital spending guidance is unchanged." Now the tape, because that's what the row is about. Oracle closed the regular session at **$152.94, down 5.38 percent**.
The crowd sold it into the print, on a day when anything with duration was for sale. Then it opened after hours up six or seven percent, depending on whose headline you read, and by 6:23 it was **$159.99, up 4.61 percent**, on stockanalysis. Read that sequence twice, because it's the week's whole statute in one ticker.
Lily's third row — *Oracle closes Friday below Thursday's close*, at 60 percent — was built on the idea that the crowd had already spent the beat during the 15 percent run-up. The crowd un-spent a third of it today, before the number came. So the bar got lower at 4:00 — $152.94 instead of $161.63 — and the price got higher at 4:05, and both of those cut against her.
The one thing running her way is that the after-hours crowd has already handed back a third of the pop in two hours. Whether it hands back the rest is what Friday is for. What I think the quarter says, and I'm calling it a reading.
The seven printed, and the cash printed with it. Twenty-three billion dollars of operating cash flow in a quarter with $19 billion of revenue means customers are paying ahead of delivery, and that is the single thing a company spending $28 billion a quarter on paper rated one notch above junk needs most. The interest line, up 55 percent, is the bear's number, and it's a real one.
The backlog add is the bull's problem: $26 billion after $85 billion, against $30 billion of new bookings, means the backlog is converting into revenue faster than it's being refilled, which is either the whole point of a backlog or the beginning of the end of the story, and the next two quarters decide which. And the gigawatt. Management said in June that delivery would "approach" a gigawatt this quarter. 850 megawatts is approaching.
It isn't there. Lily's rows: *OCI at or above $7.0 billion* — **WIN**, $7.388. *RPO at or above $700 billion* — **LOSS**, $664. *Closes Friday below Thursday's close* — grades tomorrow at 4:00. **TWO — ADOBE BEAT, RAISED, AND GOT SOLD ANYWAY.** Revenue **$6.76 billion, up 13 percent**, against $6.69 to $6.70 expected. Non-GAAP earnings **$6.13, up 15 percent**, against $6.07 to $6.09.
Subscription revenue $6.58 billion, up 14. Total annualized recurring revenue leaving the quarter, **$27.50 billion**, up 11.2 percent. AI-first ARR **more than $650 million, up more than 150 percent** on the year.
More than a billion monthly active users across the creativity and productivity products, which is the number Shantanu Narayen led with. Remaining performance obligations $22.16 billion, 67 percent of it current. Operating cash flow a record $2.52 billion.
About 9.5 million shares bought back. The full-year targets went up — revenue $26.576 to $26.626 billion, earnings $24.45 to $24.50 — and then came the line the tape stopped reading at: **fourth-quarter revenue of $6.80 to $6.85 billion, against a Street at $6.85**, with earnings of $6.30 to $6.35 against $6.30. A midpoint $25 million light on a $6.8 billion quarter.
The stock closed the session at $248.83 on stockanalysis and $248.95 on Investing.com's note — down 2.3 percent either way, sworn in tomorrow — and after hours it was down anywhere from 1 to 2.5 percent depending on the minute, **$243.00 at 6:17** on stockanalysis. The stock was already down about 18 percent on the year when the succession was announced last week. That's the context the tape is pricing: the chief financial officer left in June and the interim CFO is Steve Day; on September 4 the board named Anil Chakravarthy, who runs the customer-experience business, chief executive effective December 1, with Narayen moving to executive chair after eighteen years in the job; and the same week, David Wadhwani, who ran the creative business and had been talked about as a candidate, left.
Narayen's line tonight: "Adobe will leverage AI to increase reach, value, and impact to drive our next decade." Chakravarthy's: "I'm excited by the opportunity to drive Adobe's growth in the era of agentic software." So a beat-and-raise landed on a company with a new CEO in less than twelve weeks, a CFO seat with "interim" in front of it, and a fourth-quarter guide a rounding error under the Street, and the crowd sold the rounding error. That's the statute from the other side. The beat doesn't get paid when the crowd is waiting on a different question, and the question it's waiting on is whether 150 percent growth on $650 million ever becomes a growth rate on the whole company, which is still 13. **THREE — THE DAY, IN THE ORDER IT HAPPENED.** 8:15, the ECB hiked 25 to 2.50, its second since June, and Lagarde called the inflation "predominantly a supply shock." 8:30, producer prices: 0.4 percent on the month, in line; 5.4 on the year against 5.3; diesel up 24 percent; the core 0.2.
Claims 206,000. The odds of a hike next Wednesday went from about 60 last night to 62 before the data to 70 after it, and the AP's close had them at **73 percent, from 61 the day before**. 10:00, existing-home sales for August at 3.98 million, down 2 percent, the weakest in more than a year, with 4.9 months of supply, the most in more than a decade. Freddie Mac's Thursday survey put the 30-year mortgage at **6.76 percent, from 6.71 last week and 6.35 a year ago**, the highest in more than fourteen months per the AP, and Lennar closed down 3.5 percent, D.R.
Horton 2.4. 10:30, the EIA: crude down 400,000 barrels to 424.1 million, on par with the five-year average; gasoline up 1.3 million; distillate up 2.1 million and still 13 percent under its average. 1:00, the 30-year auction: **$22 billion at 5.308 percent against a 5.335 when-issued, a 2.7 basis point stop-through**, a 2.61 bid-to-cover against a 2.38 average, indirect bidders at 79.5 percent, and primary dealers at **2.2 percent** — the lowest anyone can find, per InvestingLive and Crypto Briefing, at the highest 30-year auction yield since 2001. 2:00, the buyback: the Treasury bought **$5.187 billion** of its own 10-to-20-year paper against a $6 billion cap, per InvestingLive and a TDG-syndicated wire; the amount dealers offered still wasn't on the Vault Report's table at 6:30, and I'll print it when it is. 2:30, the settlements above. 4:00, the fourth loss. 4:05, Oracle and Adobe. What the order tells you is the thing I wrote at midday and I'll write again. The tape ranked the Fed above the missiles all day long.
The 2-year, where a hike lives, moved thirteen basis points on a PPI and an ECB. The 30-year, where the world's savings live, found buyers at 5.31 with the dealers holding 2 percent of the paper. And the 10-year, in between, closed at 4.95 anyway, because the buyers came for the concession and didn't shrink it.
Kevin Warsh's line from Jackson Hole, in the Fed's own transcript, is the sentence the whole market is now trading against — the summer's readings "do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved." Tomorrow's CPI is the first reading since he said it. **FOUR — $107 OIL AND A RED ENERGY SECTOR, AT THE CLOSE.** The barrels first. WTI printed above $100 for the first time since May and settled at $102.48. Brent settled at $107.63 after touching $108.
The reasons, on the record: the Houthis took Mocha on the Red Sea — Al Jazeera, Euronews, the Times of Israel and UPI all carry it — and the Bab al-Mandeb is about 20 kilometers wide there. Iran claimed attacks on ten ships near Hormuz on Wednesday after the U.S. hit five tankers, per Reuters. The Wall Street Journal, per Reuters and Arab News, reported Iran has resumed building ballistic missiles from existing components underground, "in more limited quantities than before the war." OPEC's monthly report cut 2026 demand growth to 380,000 barrels a day, its fifth cut of the year, and a Reuters survey had the group's August output down 640,000 to 19.71 million.
CIBC's Rebecca Babin, on Bloomberg's wire: "Crude is trading at its highest levels since May as the market reprices both the escalation and, increasingly, the duration of geopolitical risk." And the President, at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, per PBS's transcript: "Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward." Then: "I think it's going to take a little bit longer than the midterm." Now the sector. **XLE closed at $64.93, down 0.58 percent**, on a range of $64.34 to $66.17, with the barrel up 6.7 percent. It was up 1.3 percent at the morning high and it finished red. That is the tape reading $100 oil as a rate problem and not an earnings story, and my midday row — *XLE closes Friday below Wednesday's $65.31* — is 38 cents in the money after one session.
The two rows that settled at 2:30: *Brent at or above $100 at Thursday's settlement* — **WIN**, $107.63 on Bloomberg's wire and Investrade. *The Brent–WTI spread at or above $4.50 at settlement, read from one feed at one minute* — **WIN**, $5.15 on Investrade's pair and the same $5.15 on Bloomberg's. That's the rule this desk adopted after Wednesday's stale-quote loss, used for the first time, and it held. **FIVE — THE REST OF THE TAPE.** Apple closed at **$326.57, up 3.56 percent**, the best large-cap on the board on a day the Nasdaq-100 lost a percent. It never traded below Wednesday's $315.34, and my Friday row on it is $11.23 in the money.
The second verdict on the event is in: the crowd sold the price list on Wednesday and bought the product on Thursday, and Munster's doubled Duo estimate was the number they bought. Pre-orders open Saturday at 8. The chips: **Micron $977.41, down 4.90 percent**, with a regular-session high of $999.00 on stockanalysis — Robinhood's page shows an extended-hours range up to $1,014.50, which would be the premarket, and I'm printing the regular session. **Intel $100.32, down 5.57 percent**, after a $99.34 low; 32 cents above the line two rows are drawn on.
Nvidia $218.36, down 2.37. SMH $560.28, down 2.44. Broadcom $360.83, down 0.97.
Tesla $363.56, down 1.16. Meta $644.38, down 1.42, after touching $663.50 on a JPMorgan upgrade it gave back before lunch. Copper's miners: **Freeport $71.21, down 6.59 percent**, after the metal hit a record $14,875 a ton and turned — on tariff doubt or on profit-taking, depending on which of two feeds you read; I printed both at midday and still can't tell you which is right.
AeroVironment, which was up nearly 10 percent at 2:11, closed at **$147.07, up 4.45**: the second verdict on Wednesday's guidance was still yes, but by less than half of what it looked like at lunch. Cooper Companies was the worst stock in the S&P 500, down 13 to 14 percent depending on the stamp, on a fourth-quarter guide under the Street and a board that decided not to sell CooperSurgical. Macy's closed down 4.7 percent on a beat, per the AP.
Utilities versus financials: XLU $42.52, down 0.98; XLF $56.87, down 0.33. And one for the file: a trading blog spent the afternoon explaining Micron's drop with "legal fears" over a Netlist patent complaint at the ITC. The complaint is real.
It was filed August 12. Micron fell today because a 10-year at 4.95 is the multiple's problem, not because a month-old docket entry moved. **THE BOOK, AT THE CLOSE.** Eight rows settled today, six won and two lost. *Mine — the 30-year stops through:* **WIN**, 5.308 against 5.335, InvestingLive and Crypto Briefing. *Mine — the Treasury accepts the full $6 billion:* **LOSS**, $5.187 billion, InvestingLive and the TDG wire; the offered amount prints when the Vault Report fills the line. *Mine — the EIA reports a draw:* **WIN**, 0.4 million barrels, OilPrice and InvestingLive. *Mine — Brent settles at or above $100:* **WIN**, $107.63, Bloomberg via Rigzone and Investrade. *Mine — the spread at or above $4.50 at settlement, one feed one minute:* **WIN**, $5.15 on two feeds. *Lily — OCI at or above $7.0 billion:* **WIN**, $7.388 billion. *Lily — RPO at or above $700 billion:* **LOSS**, $664 billion. *Lily — Micron closes today below $1,000:* **WIN** at $977.41 on stockanalysis, sworn in tomorrow when a second feed carries it. *Mine, from Tuesday's Midday — Wednesday's H.15 at or below Tuesday's 4.80:* grades on the Fed's table, which I couldn't load tonight; Reuters' 4.835 close says it lost, and I'll print the Fed's number in the morning either way. *Mine — Thursday's 10-year on the H.15 at or below 4.83:* losing by eleven to twelve basis points at 4.943 to 4.95; the Fed's table prints Friday afternoon. *Lily — the 10-year at or above 4.80 on Friday's H.15:* leading by fourteen. *Lily — Oracle closes Friday below Thursday's $152.94:* the after-hours crowd says no by 4.6 percent; the session decides. *Lily — SMH closes Friday below $574.29:* leading by $14.01. *Lily — Friday's CPI at or above 3.4 percent:* 8:30. *Mine — Micron above $1,000 Friday:* $22.59 out, with one session left. *Lily — Intel above $100 Friday:* 32 cents in. *Mine — Intel above $100 on September 30:* the same 32 cents, three weeks. *Mine — Tesla below $376.37 Friday:* $12.81 in. *Mine — Broadcom above $357.71 Friday:* $3.12 in. *Mine — utilities beat financials this week, from September 4's $43.08 and $58.10:* leading, XLU down 1.3 percent on the week against XLF down 2.1. *Mine, from midday — XLE closes Friday below $65.31:* 38 cents in. *Mine, from midday — Apple closes Friday above $315.34:* $11.23 in. *Mine, from midday — the Fed hikes on the 16th:* the crowd is at 73. *The Championship rows:* October and November. The week's ledger, with tonight's grades: **thirteen wins, seven losses**, one pending on the Fed's table.
Every loss is in this font. **TOMORROW, HOUR BY HOUR.** Before the open, Kroger — consensus about $34.68 billion of revenue and $1.05, with identical sales excluding fuel guided to about 1 percent, per Yahoo's preview. 8:30, August CPI. The consensus, per Kiplinger, IndexBox and the Journal's survey: **0.4 percent on the month and 3.4 on the year for the headline, 0.2 on the month and 2.4 on the year for the core**, from 0.1 and 3.4 and 0.2 and 2.5 in July. Wells Fargo has gasoline up "a little over 4 percent" for the month.
Kalshi prices a 28 percent chance the core prints above 0.2 and an 87 percent chance it prints above 0.1. Bank of America's Stephen Juneau: the report "probably won't shift the narrative of modest inflation improvement and should offer enough backing for the Fed to raise rates." Kiplinger's David Payne, the other way: "If the August report is not terrible, then the Fed will probably leave [rates] unchanged." BlackRock, per the same preview: a hot print is "likely to tip the balance toward a hike and push global yields higher." Governor Waller, before the blackout, said he'd consider a hike if August came in hot. So the number that matters tomorrow isn't 3.4.
It's the core's second decimal, and whether the energy line looks like the PPI's diesel line. 10:00, Michigan sentiment, consensus 51.7. Then it's settlement day: Micron, Intel, Tesla, Broadcom, SMH, XLE, Apple, Oracle and utilities-over-financials all grade on Friday's closes, sworn in Monday. Around 4:15, the Fed's H.15 with Thursday's 10-year, and my row grades on it.
Saturday at 8 a.m. Eastern, iPhone pre-orders. Monday, UnitedHealth goes ex-dividend.
Tuesday and Wednesday, the Fed, with the decision at 2:00 on the 16th and the crowd at 73 percent for a hike. Friday's H.15 posts Monday afternoon and grades Lily's 4.80 row. And the amount dealers offered in today's buyback is the number I want before I trust another one. **THE ROWS.** *Row one — 60% that the 2-year yield on Friday's H.15, printed Monday, is at or above 4.50 percent.* It closed at 4.55 tonight, which means the hike is priced in the one maturity that can't hide from it.
For it to give back five basis points on a CPI, the core has to print 0.1 and the crowd has to believe the Fed would read one soft month as a trend — which is the reading Warsh said he wouldn't make. Falsifier: a 0.1 core with a 3.3 headline; that's the print that turns 73 percent back into a coin flip by lunch. Settlement: the Federal Reserve's H.15, Friday's 2-year row. *Row two — 60% that WTI settles Friday at or above $100.* The Red Sea port, the missile report and the OPEC survey all landed today, the barrel closed at $102.48 with $2.48 of room, and a weekend is a reason to hold a war premium, not to sell one.
Falsifier: a ceasefire, a reserve-release announcement with a barrel count, or a Journal report that reads the other way. Settlement: the NYMEX front-month settlement as reported by Reuters, confirmed on a second feed, printed beside Brent from the same feed at the same minute. *Row three — 55% that the S&P 500's Friday close is more than 0.8 percent away from tonight's 7,591.70, in either direction.* A CPI with a 73 percent hike priced into it is a binary, and the VIX closing above 17 for the first time in more than a month is the options market saying so; four straight losses have compressed the whole tape into one number. Falsifier: a print exactly on consensus, which lets the crowd sit on its hands into a Fed week.
Settlement: the S&P 500's official Friday close on two feeds, against 7,591.70. *Grading notes.* Micron's close and the Russell's close get their second feed in the morning. The Fed's H.15 grades two 10-year rows, one at 4:15 tomorrow and one on Monday. The buyback's offered amount prints when the Treasury's table fills, and the Premarket Edge carries it. **THE CHAMPIONSHIP.** Eight rows graded tonight, six won, two lost, in the same font.
That's the whole idea of the TrendyVest Trading Championship, with your name on the row instead of ours. Registration is open now at Tournament.Trendyvest.com — 500 seats, a $100,000 simulated stake, free to enter — and the tournament begins October 1 at the market open. Write the falsifier before the entry. **TICKERS IN PLAY.** $ORCL · $ADBE · $SPY · $QQQ · $IWM · $TLT · $XLE · $AAPL · $MU · $INTC · $NVDA · $SMH · $AVGO · $META · $TSLA · $FCX · $AVAV · $COO · $M · $LEN · $DHI · $KR · $XLU · $XLF · Brent · WTI · Gold · Silver Markets.
Tech. The Edge. Research with receipts. — Nicholas Thomas --- *This is TrendyVest's analysis and opinion — for informational purposes only, not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security or commodity.
TrendyVest and its writers may own securities discussed here. The reading of Oracle's operating cash flow as customer prepayment and of the buyback shortfall as a price decision are this desk's inferences, not company or Treasury statements; the copper-tariff explanation is 24/7 Wall St.'s attribution to unnamed reports, contradicted on size and cause by CoinCentral; Robinhood's $1,014.50 Micron high is presumed to be an extended-hours print and is not used for any grade; the Russell's, Micron's and Adobe's closes are single-feed until sworn in. Sources: the closes, 10-year, Brent's $108, hike odds, Macy's, Lennar, D.R.
Horton and the mortgage and home-sales lines per the Associated Press wrap as carried by WQDR; index levels, yields, settlements, gold, silver, the VIX and streak lines per Investrade's Market Review, September 10; Yahoo Finance's closing page as the disagreeing third feed; the settlements, "highest since May" lines and the Babin quote per Bloomberg's wire on Rigzone, 3:56 PM; Oracle's Q1 FY27 figures per Oracle's inv