Trump Threatens Trade Embargo to Force Fed Rate Cuts; Stocks Fall Across the Board

📊 Today's North America Markets

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1. Trump Threatens to Halt Trade With Deficit Nations Unless Fed Cuts Rates

Source: Yahoo Finance

President Donald Trump responded to Friday's blowout jobs report by threatening to impose trade embargoes on unfavoured countries, citing a fresh spike in the U.S. trade deficit. In a Truth Social post he wrote, “LOWER THE RATE OR I'LL STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT,” in what appeared to be a directive to the Federal Reserve.

Trump, a long-time advocate of lower rates, said an embargo could be “BETTER THAN TARIFFS” and wrote that “the Fed Board, with its great new leader, must get smart.” Later, in the Oval Office, he reiterated the threat, saying he was under “no obligation” to allow trade and repeatedly floated banning all trade with Canada.

The latest data showed the U.S. goods and services trade deficit ballooned to $88.6 billion in July, the highest since March 2025 and a 24.4% surge from June's $71.2 billion. Country breakdowns showed deficits of $27.5 billion with Mexico, $23.3 billion with Vietnam, $15.2 billion with China and $8.9 billion with the European Union, partly fueled by AI data-centre spending.

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2. World's Biggest Sovereign Wealth Fund Plans to Cut U.S. Treasury Holdings

Source: CNBC

Norway's sovereign wealth fund has proposed cutting the government-bond allocation in its $2.3 trillion portfolio, chiefly affecting its U.S. Treasury holdings. In a letter made public Friday, the heads of Norges Bank Investment Management recommended reducing the government subindex of its bond holdings from 70% to 50%.

The reallocation would gradually cut Treasury holdings from 34.1% to 21.9%, reduce euro-area holdings from 16.8% to 14.1%, and lift Japanese government bonds to 7.4% from 4.6%. NBIM also wants to weight government bonds by market value rather than GDP.

The move comes at a sensitive time for the Treasury market, with long-dated yields at decade highs. Economist Mohamed El-Erian said: “The size isn't big, but the signal that traditional holders and buyers are becoming less reliable is a very important one.” The fund holds roughly $1.65 trillion in equities and $592 billion in fixed income.

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3. Nvidia Acquires Open-Source AI Platform Hugging Face for $12.9bn

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

Nvidia has acquired the artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. As BBC News reports, Nvidia will pay about $11.9 billion to Hugging Face investors and may offer up to $1 billion in stock-based incentives. Amazon, AMD and Intel are also investors in the open-source AI platform.

Nvidia president and CEO Jensen Huang wrote in a blog post that Hugging Face will stay open-source and developers will not have to use Nvidia technology. Hugging Face was founded in New York in 2016 by French entrepreneurs Clément Delangue, Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf.

Delangue told CNBC that Hugging Face approached Nvidia because it “needed more resources, more scale, [and] more visibility,” describing Nvidia as “a perfect home.” Nvidia is Hugging Face's biggest contributor, having released over 500 models and more than 250 open datasets.

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4. Nvidia's Investments Grow to $99 Billion as It Backs the AI Sector

Source: CNBC

Nvidia has become one of the world's largest corporate backers of tech companies, with its equity investments soaring more than tenfold in the past year to $99 billion. As of July 26, the value stood at $99 billion, up from about $7 billion a year earlier and about $2.2 billion two years earlier.

The chip giant has committed over $40 billion in 2026. In August it announced partnerships to mobilise more than $500 billion of financing for its GPUs and up to $105 billion in conditional credit support for an OpenAI data centre in Ohio. CFO Colette Kress said Nvidia had invested “nearly $50 billion in the frontier AI labs.”

In February Nvidia said it would invest $30 billion in OpenAI as part of the company's $110 billion funding round. Analysts say that by injecting capital into AI-infrastructure financiers, specialised cloud providers and foundation-model labs, Nvidia gives these startups the balance-sheet strength to purchase tens of thousands of its GPUs.

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5. Smart-Ring Maker Oura to List on US Stock Market

Source: The Guardian

Health-tracking smart-ring maker Oura is set to list on the Nasdaq, with its filing made public on Thursday. Founded in Finland in 2013 and now headquartered in San Francisco, the company sells rings for $349 to $499, with a $5.99 monthly or $69.99 annual subscription.

The US filing showed a thriving, high-margin business that brought in $1.21 billion in revenue in the nine months to 30 June, up 74% year on year. Oura made its first profit last year of $1.6 million, then a $60.8 million profit in the nine months to end-June. Its valuation is expected well above the $11 billion at which it raised $900 million last year.

Of particular appeal to investors is the subscription business, which has reached 5 million users — double a year ago — with 89% gross margins. Subscribers are skewed towards women, at 72%. The latest Oura Ring 5 went on sale in May at $399 and is 40% smaller than its predecessor.

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6. Lululemon Shares Tumble on Weak China, North America Sales

Source: Yahoo! Finance Canada

Lululemon shares fell 17% in early Friday trading after the athletic-apparel retailer reported weaker comparable sales and cut its full-year guidance. Second-quarter revenue was $2.4 billion, down 4% year over year and below the $2.46 billion estimate, with comparable sales down 9%.

EPS of $2.92 included a $0.86 tariff-refund benefit, and gross margin rose 200 basis points to 60.5%, boosted by $134.5 million in tariff refunds. Operating income of $453.7 million beat estimates but fell 13% year over year.

For fiscal 2026, Lululemon now guides revenue of $10.35 billion to $10.5 billion, versus an $11.04 billion estimate, and EPS of $9.48 to $9.73, versus $10.88 estimated. China Mainland comparable sales fell 8%, while North America comparable sales dropped 12%, with leggings sales down 20%.

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7. Labor Day Travel Costs Climb as Airfare, Hotel Prices Rise

Source: Fox Business

AAA booking data shows domestic airfare is up 2% from last year, averaging $750 for a round trip, while fares to the holiday weekend's most popular domestic destinations are nearly 20% higher at $790. Hotel prices are also rising, with domestic bookings up 9% and international bookings up 12%.

Pauline Frommer, publisher of Frommer's Travel Guides, said prices are ticking up for airfare, hotels, rental cars and cruises, with higher fuel prices tied to the war in Iran one factor. She added that travel companies are increasingly using AI to predict how much customers are willing to pay.

Not every category is pricier: international airfare is down 4% year over year, and cruises from U.S. ports are 4% cheaper at an average $2,700 per booking. Frommer advised flexible travellers to avoid peak periods, noting the first two weeks of December are among the cheapest times of the year.

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8. OpenAI Releases GPT-6 Astra, Its Most Powerful Model Yet

Source: 9to5Mac

OpenAI has detailed GPT-6 Astra, calling it “the world's most intelligent and aligned model.” According to the official announcement, Astra saturates FrontierMath Tier 4 with a 98% score, ARC-AGI-3 with 99.9%, and ExploitBench with 100%.

OpenAI says Astra is “the best model for software engineering to date” and makes ChatGPT nearly 2x faster at computer use. For Codex, Astra introduces a new way to preserve and retrieve context when the context window fills.

OpenAI calls Astra a “significant jump in cyber capabilities” that meets the Critical threshold under its Preparedness Framework, so it is rolling out slowly — starting today with a limited set of organisations, then all ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise users, plus the OpenAI API and AWS.

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9. US Diesel Prices Hit a Record High, Lifting Transport Costs

Source: AP News

Diesel hit a record price in the U.S. on Friday, soaring to an average of $5.85 a gallon for the first time as the six-month war with Iran disrupts the world's flow of fuel. Because diesel powers much freight and delivery, higher prices mean higher transport costs for a long list of goods.

The average price of regular gasoline is also rising, reaching $4.15 a gallon versus $3.20 a year ago, according to AAA. American diesel is now nearly 56% more expensive than before the U.S.-Israel war against Iran in late February, when it averaged about $3.76 a gallon. Brent crude traded above $95 a barrel Friday, up from about $70 before the war.

Fuel accounts for roughly 15% to 30% of the total cost of food, and experts warn price hikes could mount the longer diesel stays expensive. David Ortega, a food-economics professor at Michigan State University, said early cost increases are absorbed by supply chains, but “as contracts reprice and fuel surcharges take hold, more of that cost makes its way to the grocery store.”

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10. Sturdy Stock Market Mints a Record Number of 401(k) Millionaires

Source: CBS News

The number of 401(k) accounts managed by Fidelity Investments holding at least $1 million surged to a record 769,000 in the second quarter. The number of 401(k) millionaires jumped 19% between the first and second quarters, lifted by a bullish stock market and record average employee contribution rates.

About 3% of Fidelity's 25.8 million 401(k) accounts hold balances of at least $1 million, and the average contribution rate stayed at a record 9.6%. “Despite a lot of the things that have happened throughout 2026, we're seeing consistent savings rates,” said Michael Shamrell, Fidelity's vice president of thought leadership.

The S&P 500 gained 15% in the second quarter. Still, million-dollar accounts remain rare — an NFP survey found 72% of workers report lagging on retirement savings — and the average Fidelity 401(k) balance was $155,800 as of June 30.

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