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Good morning and happy Labor Day.
British police near Liverpool were pouring over the evidence as they searched for 70,000 pints worth of stolen Guinness last week. Thieves slipped out of a depot with 800 barrels of Vitamin G worth $155,000 by hitching the two trailers they were stored in, worth another $67,000. “It is famously said that ‘Guinness is good for you,’ but that is only the case when it has been bought and paid for,” Detective Sergeant Gary McClatchey of the Cheshire Constabulary said in a statement.
The caper was revealed days after Pabst Brewing offered $20,000 for 1,600 cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and non-alcoholic Old Milwaukee that it said vanished from a Southern California warehouse in late August. Worth $70,000, the missing beer was destined for San Diego and Tucson. Here’s hoping the thirsty villains on both sides of the pond are caught quickly as the last thing you want in a scenario like this is a cold case.
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MARKETS
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Stock data as of market close on September 4, 2026.
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Henry Ford, according to folklore, observed that if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Today, a slightly wiser world might answer cheaper EVs, and that’s music to BYD’s ears.
In its recent earnings call, the Chinese EV-maker reported that its overseas sales trumped its domestic sales for the first time in company history. It’s a sign both of booming global demand and a shifting Chinese market. Either way, Western carmakers could be in trouble.
A BYD In Every Garage
BYD’s overseas sales in the first half of the year rose 34% to $27 billion, accounting for 53% of total sales. Meanwhile, Chinese revenue dipped 31%, battered by the increasingly brutal dynamics of the domestic market. Industry-wide car sales in China have been in a nearly yearlong decline, according to the China Passenger Car Association, which recently said that sales in July had fallen 21% year over year. In a double whammy, fierce pricing competition means selling cars at home is a razor-thin-margin business.
It’s why the global market is a matter of both opportunity and survival for BYD. Not so coincidentally, BYD achieved quarterly profit growth for the first time in over a year during the second quarter as its export business gained speed; net profit reached $1.2 billion, up 30% year over year.
As BYD rounds the corner into a global player, it’s become something of a perverse weather vane for Western carmakers. What’s bad for BYD is bad for Western players, and what’s good for BYD is also bad for Western players:
- The pain felt by BYD at home is felt far more acutely by Western carmakers. In July, Mercedes said a 30% decline in China sales offset growth in all other markets; in August, GM discontinued its Chevrolet brand in China following a 99% sales collapse from a 2014 peak.
- Meanwhile, BYD’s global success, particularly in developing markets, is swallowing up longtime international strongholds for legacy brands. For instance, BYD outsold Toyota, 17,354 bookings to 15,750, at this year’s Bangkok International Motor Show, despite Toyota’s longtime Thai dominance; in Brazil, BYD is now neck and neck with Volkswagen, which has been assembling cars there since the 1950s.
  No Thank EU: The European Union may soon follow the US’s example, and is considering imposing at least some tariffs on BYD’s plug-in hybrid vehicles to protect domestic manufacturers. Meanwhile, Canada seems to be welcoming BYD. The brand is due to launch in The Great White North later this year. And last week, Brampton, Ontario, Mayor Patrick Brown said BYD had approached him about taking over a struggling Stellantis plant, saying “If the US takes a position that causes us to no longer be able to be a partner with them on autos, there is a world of possibilities.”
Written by Brian Boyle
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Photo via Miso Robotics
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Chevron is getting a sweet deal on Venezuela’s sour crude.
Last week, the Houston-based company announced that it’s investing more than $7 billion in Venezuela over the next five years, more than doubling its production there to roughly 600,000 barrels a day. Chevron is already the largest private oil producer in the South American country, where it has been operating since 1923, meaning it has plenty of experience and the right infrastructure to make the most of the expansion. The company’s three joint ventures in Venezuela have grown production by 15% year-to-date, and the new agreement comes with “enhanced fiscal, commercial and legal terms” plus more acreage in the Orinoco Belt, per the statement. Total costs will be less than $20 per barrel.
Oil Economics
Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, but its energy industry isn’t close to taking full advantage of that potential. Reuters reports that its current oil output is only about 1.25 million barrels per day (bpd) compared with the more than 3 million bpd it was producing 20 years ago. The decline is the result of dysfunction at PDVSA, its state-run oil firm. But US Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently said that the country is expected to hit 2 million bpd by the end of the decade.
It’ll take years before Chevron hits the numbers outlined in the deal, and even when it does, it won’t be bringing enough online to replace Persian Gulf crude. But there’s plenty untapped, and the US is looking to take advantage:
- GE Vernova recently agreed to help fix portions of the country’s power grid. The Department of Energy says it “plans to bring 1 gigawatt of new reliable power online within the first 24 months, in addition to 5 gigawatts over the following four years, significantly expanding Venezuela’s power capacity.” Wright recently traveled to Venezuela to oversee the closure of the deals with Chevron, GE Vernova and Italian energy company Eni.
- Chevron’s news came just days after President Trump announced a separate (and unusual) deal to take control of a large portion of Venezuela’s oil reserves via a partnership with a private company.
Crude Awakening: The Chevron deal points to the broader dislocation in the energy markets that continues to be top of mind for policymakers and investors. As geopolitical risks interrupt traditional supply routes, it’s becoming more important to tap into areas with major reserves, even if it will take billions of dollars and years to turn investments into actual energy security.
Written by Mallika Mitra
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Shares in Oracle have tumbled 18.5% this year and, in July, ratings agency S&P Global downgraded the company’s credit rating to one notch above junk status. Oracle has been dogged by broader concerns about the software sector, as well as the debt pile it’s amassing in pursuit of becoming a major AI cloud hyperscaler alongside Microsoft, Amazon and Google.
So, naturally, in advance of the company’s upcoming earnings report on Thursday, some analysts see a golden buying opportunity.
The Big Fundamentals
Investor concerns about Oracle center on spending and debt. The evidence to justify them is easier to spot than a California transplant in Austin, where the company is headquartered.
Oracle’s June earnings release revealed negative free cash flow of $23.7 billion in the 2026 fiscal year. Revenue was devoured by capital expenditures, mostly in connection with AI buildout plans that include future data center leases totaling $260 billion. Financing those plans to build enormous amounts of new cloud infrastructure pushed Oracle’s debt pile up to $129.5 billion.
But Jefferies analysts argued last week that Oracle’s fundamentals deserve a second look. Quarterly revenue growth finished the 2026 fiscal year at 21% after starting the year at 12%. Oracle’s contracted backlog rose a whopping 363% in the 2026 fiscal year to a record $638 billion. Revenue climbed 17% to $67 billion. With “most bad news priced in,” the stock may be on the cusp of a buying opportunity:
- While they cut their price target to $290 from $320, that still suggests an 82% upside from Friday’s $158.78 closing price.
- Morgan Stanley analysts said Oracle could report annualized cloud revenue growth of up to 63% in its most recent quarter, driven by its GPU-as-a-service business, in what would act as a “good setup” for the stock.
Good News From Rivals: Cloud providers Nebius Group and CoreWeave recently offered optimistic commentary on AI pricing, which Morgan Stanley said bodes well for Oracle’s earnings. A recent run of rallies by rival software firms is another good sign, as investors have shown renewed interest in the beaten-down sector. Salesforce, Okta and Snowflake all jumped 17% or more after reporting across-the-board earnings beats in the past two weeks.
Written by Sean Craig
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- Fed Independence Day: US non-farm payrolls smashed through expectations in August, rising 162,000 or more than triple the 55,000 market forecast.
- Oops, AI Did It Again: Rogue OpenAI agents escaped containment, hacked a German website and turned it into a message board for other AI agents earlier this year, a new report claims.
- Pull Over, Please: Shares of Tesla dropped 6% after its Cybercab presentation failed to wow investors, with Wells Fargo analysts saying the service is “facing early execution issues.”
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Disclaimer
*This is a paid advertisement for Miso Robotics’ Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.misorobotics.com.
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