Nvidia's forecast carries the Nasdaq, and Jackson Hole waits on Warsh

One company, $442 billion

The week's set piece resolved in Nvidia's favour. On Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal, investors had been bracing for less-than-perfect results and pulled shares lower in anticipation. What arrived instead was a bullish forecast, and by Thursday's close the company had, in the Journal's phrase, broken its post-earnings curse with a $442 billion day.

City A.M.'s live blog recorded the split that followed: the FTSE 100 fell while the Nasdaq soared, with Nvidia's sales doubling as artificial intelligence spending continued. The Journal's own market coverage on Thursday led with the same point, stocks climbing as the forecast lifted investors' spirits, with oil falling and software shares among the beneficiaries.

The company's message went beyond a single quarter. In a separate piece published in the early hours of Friday, the Journal reported that Nvidia insists it can keep printing money to fund the AI boom, a claim that matters rather more to the wider market than the quarter just reported does.

Asia took the cue in a measured way. The Nikkei rose 0.4 per cent in Friday trading, led by IT services stocks, which is a modest response by the standards of the American session that preceded it. The contrast with London is the more striking one: the same news that added hundreds of billions of dollars to a single American market capitalisation left the FTSE 100 lower on the day.

Hammack wants higher rates; Warsh has the microphone

Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack told CNBC on Wednesday that "now is the time to act" on raising interest rates. The remark stands out chiefly for its direction of travel, and for its timing, arriving in the days immediately before the Federal Reserve's annual gathering at Jackson Hole.

City A.M. framed Friday as a "D-Day" for Kevin Warsh, the Fed chairman, whose speech is the event of the week for anyone attempting to read American monetary policy. The paper's language leaves little doubt about how much the market has invested in what he says.

Currency desks are behaving accordingly. The Journal reported on Friday morning in Asia that the Singapore dollar was consolidating ahead of Warsh's speech, with Asian currencies generally sitting still rather than committing to a view. Waiting is itself a position, and for now it is the prevailing one across the region's foreign exchange markets.

Against that, the South China Morning Post carried an opinion piece arguing that a bond market revolt signals fading confidence in American economic leadership. That is a commentator's reading rather than a market print, but it sets Hammack's call for higher rates in a longer frame: the question of what the Fed does next sits inside a broader argument about how much credibility the institution and the sovereign borrower behind it still command. Warsh speaks into that argument, not merely into a debate about the next twenty-five basis points.

Bicycles, Canadian banks and Hong Kong robots

Away from the chip trade, Halfords shares reached a four-year high after the retailer lifted its annual profit outlook, crediting warm weather. Both This is Money and City A.M. covered it on Thursday morning, the latter putting the heatwave at the centre of the upgrade.

Canada's banks had a good quarter. Royal Bank of Canada notched record earnings, the Journal reported, as results from the country's biggest lenders beat expectations. Toronto-Dominion's figures were lifted by growth in Canada and by capital markets activity.

Prudential struck a different note, reporting slower growth in new business profit while announcing a $300 million share buy-back.

Hong Kong's listings pipeline continues to fill with machinery. The South China Morning Post reported that two more Chinese robotics firms are eyeing listings there, and separately that a SoftBank-backed surgical robotics company is considering a Hong Kong float to fund a mainland China push. Elsewhere in Chinese technology, Zhipu AI shares jumped after the viral Ox Alpha model was revealed to be GLM-5.3-Flash, running on Chinese chips. Chinese private funds, meanwhile, have gained ground on the back of a chip sell-off, with $83.3 billion pulled out of mutual funds.

Two smaller items from Britain. The Financial Conduct Authority published research finding that young investors trust artificial intelligence more than what they see on television or hear from celebrities. And the government pressed the Bank of England to innovate on payments and digital currencies.