The Closer
Published
The market's split personality carried into the evening: equities kept leaning into the AI and nuclear power trade even as the Middle East energy crisis showed no sign of easing. The Dow's advance and Constellation Energy's nuclear-driven surge reflected investors betting that power demand from data centers outweighs the risk building in the Gulf.
That risk kept compounding after the close. The EIA raised its 2026 Brent forecast to $98 a barrel, citing falling inventories, tight diesel and continued disruption through the Strait of Hormuz, with fourth-quarter Brent seen averaging $105. Treasury Secretary Bessent added a concrete data point to the standoff, saying Iran has not loaded a single barrel of crude onto a vessel since August 25. On the diplomatic track, Trump said the US will "finish off" Iran and that its drone-making capacity will "soon be gone," while Vice President Vance said Iran must meaningfully cut its uranium enrichment, now at 60%, to end the war, adding that it remains unclear who is actually running the country. Trump separately said the Russia-Ukraine war is getting closer to ending and that he has a call scheduled with Putin.
Corporate activity continued apace. Chevron agreed to divest its Hess Midstream stake and DJ Basin midstream assets for $200 million in cash plus improved Bakken terms, expecting to deconsolidate roughly $3.7 billion of debt and book a $3 to $4 billion after-tax loss, with the deal seen cutting Bakken unit midstream costs by about half. Cintas confirmed its UniFirst acquisition remains on track for year-end close after clearing FTC and Canadian antitrust requests, with a timing agreement barring closing before December 11. SpaceX is looking to raise $40 billion, led by Apollo, to buy Nvidia chips, extending the financing-for-AI-infrastructure theme that drove Wednesday's session. Constellation Brands beat on quarterly earnings but guided full-year sales growth to a range of -1% to +1%, a soft outlook that weighed on the stock after hours.
European futures slipped modestly into Thursday, with the Eurostoxx 50 and DAX each down 0.4%, a sign the region is still digesting the same energy and rate pressures flagged earlier by the ECB and Bank of England. Gold held its climb near $4,170 an ounce as the broader hedge against the conflict stayed in place even while US equities kept pricing the AI buildout as the dominant story.