The Treasury's buyback barely moved the needle, US debt crossed $40 trillion, and the Fed's minutes revealed a 9-3 split with a hike on the table. The AI buildout is now funded by record debt, and bond investors are starting to ask questions.
Treasury Secretary Bessent doubled long-dated bond buybacks to try to arrest a selloff in long-term U.S. debt. It worked for about a day. Longer-maturity yields snapped right back, and money managers shrugged the plan off as a drop in the bucket next to $40 trillion of debt. The real message for investors: no easy fix, and higher borrowing costs ahead.
A personalized mRNA vaccine layered on top of Merck's Keytruda extended recurrence-free and metastasis-free survival in 1,137 patients whose melanoma had been surgically cleared. It's the first positive Phase 3 readout for both mRNA and individualized neoantigen cancer therapy. Moderna spiked as much as ~70% premarket, with prior five-year data showing a 49% lower risk of recurrence or death. Full data comes at an oncology conference; FDA filing is next.
For the first time in a decade, hyperscalers are funding AI infrastructure with borrowed money at scale: ~$35B of debt a year from 2020-24 became $93B in 2025 and roughly $132B already this year, including one of the largest corporate bond sales on record. Vanguard reads the shift as a maturing investment cycle, not distress, but S&P has already cut Oracle to BBB- on negative cash flow. Bond investors, not just equity holders, now carry the AI boom.
Samsung Electronics says 2026 shareholder returns will hit 90-110 trillion won (up to $79.5B), the largest package ever by a Korean company, and a direct reply to SK Hynix's 40 trillion won buyback days earlier. Roughly 30 trillion won lands as Q3 cash dividends. The stock is up ~135% year-to-date on AI memory demand; final details land at a late-January board meeting.
SK Hynix shares jumped more than 12% in Seoul after the memory maker said it is accelerating a 40 trillion won ($28.7 billion) buyback and cancellation program. It also committed to handing out over 50% of cumulative free cash flow from 2025 to 2027 to shareholders. Analysts call the repurchase a floor for the share price and a vote of confidence in the AI buildout SK Hynix is funding with billions in new memory plants.
July's FOMC minutes show the Fed's most fractured policy vote in years: a 9-3 hold at 3.5%-3.75%, with the Cleveland, Dallas and Minneapolis presidents pressing for an immediate quarter-point hike. Many participants said tightening would likely be needed if inflation doesn't cool, and some doubted policy is restrictive enough. Markets have since pushed expectations of a hike to December.
America's gross national debt crossed $40 trillion this week, just five months after passing $39 trillion, and the pace is quickening. The milestone undercuts Trump's promise of fiscal restraint: tax cuts, the Iran war and tariff refunds all added to the bill. It's already hitting wallets as higher rates lift mortgage and car-loan costs and inflate prices. The Bipartisan Policy Center sees the $41.1 trillion debt limit arriving by mid-2027.
Goldman is paying up to $410 million for LCN Capital Partners, a triple-net lease and sale-leaseback landlord. It's the bank's second deal in a week as it bulks up its $4 trillion asset-management arm, after the $2.25 billion Neos ETF purchase. LCN, founded by a Goldman alum, has raised 10 funds with roughly 11% annual returns, ready-made income streams to repackage for wealth clients.
Nvidia's in early talks with South Korean AI-chip designer Rebellions, weighing a technical partnership, an equity stake, or even a full buyout. Jensen Huang hosted CEO Sunghyun Park at Nvidia HQ this week. The twist: Rebellions is a chipmaker that's spent two years positioning as a Nvidia challenger, fresh off a $640M raise at a $2.6B valuation.
Ramp's spending data across 70,000+ U.S. businesses shows Anthropic still holds the lead, nearly 44% of paid AI customers to OpenAI's ~40%, but OpenAI has grown faster through Q3. The flip-flop cuts against the idea that enterprise AI spend is sticky. It also reveals a bigger trend: nearly 56% of Ramp's paying customers now shell out for AI, so both labs win as the market expands.
Walmart beat second-quarter estimates and lifted full-year guidance, yet US comparable-store sales rose just 2.6%, the slowest pace in more than six years and well under the ~3.7% Street wanted. Shares fell as much as 9%, their worst day since 2022. As the nation's retail bellwether, the miss reads as a live check on a tightening consumer.
You’re caught up.
That was all 11 stories in the 21 August issue.