7 September 2026 | Weekly Snapshot
Saward Dawson > Wealth Advisory Insights > Weekly Snapshot > 7 September 2026
Did you know?
The United States will spend around US$1 trillion servicing its debt this financial year. The chart below puts that in context: net interest payments have reached roughly 3.3% of GDP, eclipsing the previous record set in 1991.
The mechanism is unforgiving, because a large slice of the debt rolls over every year and today’s higher yields steadily replace yesterday’s cheap coupons. The Congressional Budget Office projects interest reaching 4.6% of GDP by 2036.
Larger deficits mean more issuance, more issuance means higher yields, and higher yields mean a larger interest bill the following year. It is a loop that closes only with lower rates or a smaller deficit.
In the short run, this could be a supportive backdrop for gold investors. Further ahead, should yields show signs of peaking, there will be an opportunity for investors to lock those yields in via fixed-rate bonds.
Source: Bloomberg and US government data. Series is US federal net interest payments as a share of GDP, 1985 to 2026.
Market Movements
The ASX fell 1.1% and the damage was concentrated in two places. Materials dropped 4.6% and technology 4.2%, with the broader resources index off 4.3%. Financials were the offset.
BHP was the single largest drag on the index, down 7.5% to A$62.25, although roughly 2.2 percentage points of that was simply the A$1.39 final dividend going ex on Thursday. There was no company-specific news; this was a rotation out of a sector that has carried the index for twelve months. BHP remains up 36.8% for the calendar year, which is the more useful number, and a reminder that the resources trade is the reason the Australian market has held up at all in 2026.
Northern Star fell 6.5% and the gold complex gave ground broadly as bullion eased 1.1%. Gold miners had a very strong August on the back of reporting season cash flows, so a good deal of this is profit-taking rather than a change of trend.
Growth surprises and a fourth hike moves closer. Australia’s June-quarter GDP grew 0.4% and 2.1% over the year, against consensus of 0.3% and 1.8%. That is a resilient result for an economy that has absorbed three rate increases this year, and it landed directly on top of the previous week’s trimmed mean inflation reading of 3.6%, still above the Reserve Bank’s 2–3% target band. Solid growth alongside sticky inflation is the combination that keeps a central bank tightening.
The bond market responded. The two-year yield rose 1.7% to 4.77% and the ten-year 1.4% to 5.15%, having touched a fifteen-year high of 5.25% during the week. Australian government bonds have now underperformed every global peer through this selloff. Pricing for an interest rate increase at the 29 September meeting sits at roughly two-thirds, and a further move is fully priced by the November meeting.
One detail cuts the other way. The housing downturn continued through August and several major banks cut their forecasts for how far prices fall this cycle. A central bank raising rates into falling house prices is not in a comfortable position, and that is the strongest argument for the RBA waiting rather than moving this month.
The Australian dollar rose 0.6% to US$0.72, firming as domestic rate expectations shifted.
American markets were firmer, with the S&P 500 up 0.1% to 7,718.6 and the Nasdaq 0.4%, a second consecutive weekly gain. Energy led global sectors with a rise of 2.2%.
Friday’s employment report was the main event and an awkward one. The American economy added 162,000 jobs in August against expectations closer to 55,000, with the unemployment rate steady at 4.1% and upward revisions to both June and July. Strong employment raised the odds of a Federal Reserve increase and equities fell on the news. Earlier in the week Governor Christopher Waller had said he could support holding rates at the 16 September meeting if August inflation continues to improve, which took hike pricing down from about 68% to a coin flip. The two-year yield rose 0.4% to 4.37% and the ten-year 1.1% to 4.78%.
The US–Iran conflict and the oil price. The war is now six months old, and after roughly a month of relative calm the United States resumed strikes on Iran early in the week, with Tehran retaliating against American bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates and against shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Six vessels transited the strait on Wednesday against a ten-day average near thirteen, and roughly 130 a day before the conflict began in late February. Crude and liquids moving through Hormuz averaged 4.9 million barrels a day in the June quarter, down from 21.6 million before the war, which is the largest energy supply disruption on record. Vice President Vance has ruled out talks until the attacks on shipping stop, and the European Union has formally joined the sanctions campaign. On the outlook, the US Energy Information Administration does not expect Middle East production back near pre-conflict levels until early 2027.
US earnings consensus. FactSet’s 4 September data makes a useful point about how earnings estimates are absorbing the energy shock. Analysts raised third-quarter estimates for S&P 500 companies by 1.2%. Estimated third-quarter earnings growth now sits at 28.5%. The second quarter finished with 87% of companies beating on earnings and 77% on revenue. The forward price-to-earnings ratio is 19.5, below its five-year average of 19.8, because estimates have risen faster than prices since June.
Portfolio Insights
Palo Alto Networks fell 10.3% to US$333.26 over the week despite a fourth-quarter result that beat on every headline line.
- Revenue rose 34% to US$3.41 billion against US$3.35 billion expected and adjusted earnings came in at US$1.02 a share versus US$0.98. Guidance for FY2027 was set well past consensus: revenue of US$14.10 against US$13.79 billion expected and adjusted earnings per share of US$4.19 against US$4.11.
- The problem was margin. Gross margin came in at 74.8%, a hundred basis points lower than a year earlier, and management told the call that cloud hosting costs will grow faster than revenue in FY2027 with memory and storage costs staying elevated.
- The shares had roughly doubled over twelve months and remain up 81% for the calendar year, so a business growing 34% was priced for strong results. The irony is worth noting: the memory costs squeezing Palo Alto are the same shortage that made Micron the best performer among the largest American companies this week, up 9.0%.
Meta Platforms rose 6.7% to US$616.77 on two pieces of news in the same week.
- The first was settlement of its long-running child-safety litigation, reported at around US$17 billion payable over ten years, which removes a legal overhang that had sat on the stock for some time.
- The second was paid developer access to Muse Spark 1.3, its newest model, which the company says outperforms rival frontier models on coding and long-context benchmarks. Analysts made the fair observation that technology companies tend to ship faster once large lawsuits are behind them.
- Even after the move Meta is 6.6% lower for the calendar year and well below its 52-week high near US$790, so this is a recovery from a poor year rather than a breakout.
Nvidia rose 5.9% after confirming it will buy Hugging Face for US$12.93 billion, its second-largest acquisition after the US$20 billion Groq transaction in December.
- Hugging Face is the principal open-source repository for artificial intelligence models, with more than eighteen million developers, three million models, half a million datasets and two hundred thousand corporate users. Roughly US$11.9 billion goes to shareholders with a further US$1 billion in equity to retain staff, and completion is expected in the first half of next year. The price is a considerable step up from the US$4.5 billion valuation the business carried in 2023.
- Jensen Huang was explicit that the platform stays open and that Nvidia hardware will not be required to build or deploy on it. That is rather the point. Against a market capitalisation near US$5.5 trillion the sum is financially immaterial; what it buys is the layer at which developers choose their models, which makes it harder for anyone to build around Nvidia rather than on it.
The Week Ahead
- Wednesday 9 September — China CPI YoY (Aug) consensus 0.9% (prior 0.5%, a six-month low that revived deflation concerns). The expected rebound is largely an oil story rather than a demand story, so the core detail matters more than the headline.
- Thursday 10 September — European Central Bank rate decision. A 25 basis point increase to a 2.50% deposit rate is fully priced after euro area inflation accelerated to 3.3% in August, the highest since 2023, driven by energy inflation of 14.3%. A second increase is fully priced for December, so the press conference matters more than the decision. USA PPI (Aug).
- Friday 11 September — USA CPI (Aug) is the week’s main event and the print Waller has said will determine his vote. Consensus is core inflation of 0.2% for the month, taking the annual core rate to 2.4% from 2.5%, with headline at 3.5% (prior 3.4%). A core reading back at 0.3% would push September hike odds well above the current coin flip
- Earnings — no Akambo holdings report this week. Oracle and Adobe are the largest American results, with Kroger and Chewy offering a further read on the consumer after Lululemon cut its outlook.
Saward Dawson Wealth Advisors Pty Ltd, a Corporate Authorised Representative of Akambo Pty Ltd t/a Accountants Private Advice
The information presented in this publication is general information only, and is not intended to be financial product advice. It has not been prepared taking into account your investment objectives, financial situation or needs, and should not be used as the basis for making an investment decision. Before making any investment decision you need to consider (with your financial adviser) your particular investment needs, objectives and financial circumstances.
Some numerical figures in this publication have been subject to rounding adjustments. Akambo Pty Ltd (including any of its directors, officers or employees) will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of any reliance on this information. The market commentary reflect Akambo Pty Ltd’s views and beliefs at the time of preparation, which are subject to change without notice.
