Apple's folding iPhone is here 📱

Welcome back to the Day Trading newsletter 📈

Stocks fell for a third straight day Wednesday as Brent crude closed above $100 and the 10-year Treasury yield hit its highest level since 2023, and Thursday opened lower again after a hot wholesale inflation print.

In the middle of all that, Apple's new CEO walked on stage and bent the iPhone in half.

Let’s get into it 👇️ 

🛢️ U.S. crude oil topped $100 a barrel Thursday for the first time since May as the U.S.-Iran war escalated again. WTI hit $100.88 intraday and Brent traded near $105 after the U.S. military destroyed at least eight Iranian tankers since Saturday. Oil is up nearly 16% this month, and Goldman Sachs says intensifying attacks on shipping raise the risk of a spike above $120.

📈 Treasury yields hit their highest levels since 2023 after the Treasury said it would buy back up to $6 billion of bonds. The buyback, triple the usual $2 billion, was meant to calm the bond market. Instead, investors who expected a bigger number sold: the 10-year closed at 4.84% Wednesday, and the 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 6.97%, its highest in more than a year.

💲 Wholesale prices rose 0.4% in August, putting the annual producer price index at 5.4%, well above the Fed's 2% target. Energy did the damage: diesel prices jumped 24.1% in a single month. Traders nudged the odds of a Fed rate hike at next week's meeting to about 66%, and Friday's CPI report is expected to show inflation running 3.4% a year.

🏦 The European Central Bank raised interest rates a quarter point Thursday, lifting its deposit rate to 2.50%. The ECB blamed the Middle East conflict for inflation that it now sees averaging 3.0% this year and staying above target through 2027. Euro-area inflation hit 3.3% in August with energy prices up 14.3%. The Fed decides next Wednesday.

❌ The White House will ban imports of Canadian whiskey, wine, beer, dairy whey and large motorcycles starting Sept. 29. The executive orders, signed Tuesday, largely replace the 50% tariffs already in place and answer Canada's C$27.6 billion in counter-tariffs that took effect the same day. Trump is still threatening 50% tariffs on Canadian cars and parts from Jan. 1.

⛏️ Copper miners tumbled Thursday after Reuters reported the White House has stalled its refined-copper tariff plan over affordability concerns. Freeport-McMoRan and Southern Copper each fell about 7% premarket as copper retreated from the record it set just days earlier. The tariff bet had pulled metal into U.S. warehouses all summer; take the tariff away and the scarcity premium goes with it.

💰️ Nasdaq is investing $100 million in Kraken's parent company Payward at a $21 billion valuation to launch tokenized stocks. The exchange and the crypto firm plan to start trading blockchain-based versions of Nasdaq-listed shares in the second quarter of 2027, with the tokens carrying the same voting rights as regular stock. Payward will also adopt Nasdaq's market surveillance tech.

⛽️ Trump's nine largest oil and gas holdings gained between $1.5 million and $4.4 million between the eve of the Iran war and Aug. 31, a CNBC analysis found. There's no evidence of trading on advance knowledge, but the president said Wednesday that energy prices won't come down until after November's midterms. Meanwhile, diesel is expected to cross $6 a gallon for the first time ever within days.

John Ternus, barely a week into the job after replacing Tim Cook on Sept. 1, opened his first keynote as Apple CEO on Wednesday with a 30-second standing ovation and closed it with the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable and its biggest iPhone redesign in the product's nearly 20-year history.

The Duo is about the size of a passport, with a 5.4-inch outer screen that opens into a 7.6-inch display, a titanium case, a fingerprint sensor in the side button, Apple Pencil support, and Apple's in-house C2 modem.

It starts at $1,999 for 256GB (a 2TB version runs $3,199), with preorders Oct. 16 and delivery Oct. 23.

That price came in below much of what Wall Street was expecting; IDC had pegged an Apple foldable at $2,500 or more.

The rest of the lineup got pricier.

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the Pro Max at $1,299, both $100 more than last year, which Apple blames on a global memory-chip shortage that Cook called a "100-year flood." Apple Watch Series 12 held at $399 and the new AirPods 5 cost $129.

What wasn't there mattered too: no base-model iPhone 18. Analysts expect it in spring 2027, the first time in seven years Apple has split its Pro and standard launches.

Apple shares were down as much as 1.8% during the presentation and closed off 0.28% at $315.34, then rebounded more than 2% Thursday morning as analysts warmed to the price.

The stock is up about 15% this year.

Roughly half of Apple's revenue comes from the iPhone, and iPhone growth has leaned on pricier Pro models for years.IDC estimates the 17 Pro and Pro Max were 54% of iPhone sales in the first half of 2026.

A $1,999 phone pushes that average selling price higher still, and holding the cheaper iPhone 18 until spring could smooth out Apple's notoriously lumpy revenue, which peaks in the holiday quarter and sags after.

Bank of America's Wamsi Mohan says the split launch "could support mix and ASPs," but warns price-sensitive buyers may simply wait.

Foldables are still a niche, about 2.2% of smartphone shipments this year per IDC, and Huawei controls nearly 80% of the category in China.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold8 starts at $1,899.99, so Apple's price is competitive, not a moonshot.

Citi kept its Buy rating and $365 target, calling the Duo Apple's biggest new hardware category since the Apple Watch and AirPods. KeyBanc, one of the few firms with a sell rating, argued before the event that it was "likely a negative catalyst" no matter what Apple priced.

What to watch:

• Preorder demand on Oct. 16 and early supply: the same memory shortage driving price hikes could cap how many Duos Apple can build this quarter.

• Qualcomm, since the C2 modem moves Apple another step toward dropping Qualcomm chips entirely by next year's iPhone 19.

• The crease, which dominated social media reaction and will decide whether reviewers call this a real phone or a $2,000 curiosity.

• Ternus himself. Cook was the supply-chain CEO; Ternus is the hardware engineer, and the Duo is the first product that's fully his to own.
  

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⚠️ Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Do your research before making any trades.