Preview of US Stock Market | All three major stock index futures are rising together, oil prices are edging slightly lower, and triple witching day arrives tonight, potentially bringing a test of liquidity.

Premarket Market Moves 1. On Friday, September 18, ahead of the U.S. stock market open, all three major U.S. stock index futures rose together. As of press time, Dow futures were up 0.04%, S&P 500 index futures were up 0.16%, and Nasdaq futures were up 0.36%. 2. As of press time, Germany's DAX index was down 0.93%, the UK's FTSE 100 index was down 0.91%, France's CAC 40 index was down 0.95%, and the Euro Stoxx 50 index was down 0.97%. 3. As of press time, WTI crude oil was down 0.70% at $101.20 per barrel. Brent crude oil was down 1.61% at $103.13 per barrel. Market News Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.: "Earnings bubble" fears are exaggerated, and the S&P 500 is expected to rise to 8,700 points next year. Strategists at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. said that strong earnings performance by U.S. companies is being supported by a solid economic outlook and the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, meaning concerns about an "earnings bubble" are exaggerated. Data shows that S&P 500 constituent companies saw profits jump by about 30% in each of the previous two quarters, ranking among the strongest performances on record. Full-year earnings expectations have also reached their highest level since the post-COVID rebound in 2021. Although this pace of growth suggests that companies are "over-earning" as AI investment surges, the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. strategy team led by Ben Snider said it expects profit growth to slow in the coming years rather than collapse outright. Snider wrote in a report: "Market pricing reflects expectations for continued earnings growth, but it also carries reasonable doubts about the sustainability of current profitability." Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. forecasts that corporate earnings will grow 11% next year and could help drive the S&P 500 up 14% over the next year to about 8,700 points. Triple witching day arrives! Friday's market faces a liquidity test. For tonight, Wall Street is preparing for possible volatility. On Friday, U.S. stocks will see the quarterly "triple witching day," when three types of contracts expire simultaneously: stock index futures, stock index options, and single-stock options. According to Bluekurtic Market Insights, its historical performance has been notoriously poor. Data tracking performance since 2000 shows a fairly consistent trend: since 2012, the S&P 500 has closed lower in 12 of 14 "triple witching days." The only two exceptions during this period occurred in 2017 and 2025, when the index barely managed gains of 0.2% and 0.5%. With options representing more than $2 trillion in notional delta set to expire in a concentrated manner, market observers warn that this quarterly liquidity event could trigger downside volatility. This upcoming expiration event comes during what has historically been the most challenging month of the year for stocks. Although the S&P 500 has so far withstood these seasonal headwinds with an unusually calm 0.3% gain, Friday's large-scale expiration event could become the ultimate test of this month's performance so far. A "glimmer of dawn" for the U.S. Treasury selloff! High yields of 5% attract a flood of money. Although the world's largest bond market is shrouded in various anxieties, some investors see an attractive reason to buy: yield. For investors, a possible "glimmer of dawn" is that they now have an opportunity that has appeared only occasionally since the global financial crisisto buy now and lock in an annualized return of about 5% for the next 10 years or even longer. A growing number of money management institutions find this opportunity hard to refuse. According to Morningstar data, as of the end of August, $625 billion had flowed net into U.S. bond mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this year, the highest level for the same period since records began in 2010. Asset managers including The Pacific Investment Management and Vanguard expect this pace of inflows to accelerate as investors rebalance portfolios away from equities and toward fixed-income assets. "New Bond King" Gundlach warns: The next recession could trigger a U.S. debt crisis, and U.S. Treasuries will no longer be a safe haven. Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital and the "New Bond King," warned that the next U.S. economic downturn could trigger a debt crisis and push long-end U.S. Treasury yields sharply higherbreaking the decades-old conventional wisdom that "bonds are always a safe haven during times of economic turmoil." This scenario could force the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to adopt unconventional policies, such as the Fed restarting "Operation Twist" to buy long-term bonds, or even debt restructuring. He said he is focusing on low-duration assets to protect DoubleLine Capital's funds from further upward pressure on interest rates. He said: "Once the economy falls into recession, the market will focus heavily on the fiscal situation. The budget deficit could easily reach 12% of GDP. That would generate about $3 trillion in annual interest expense, a burden that is simply unsustainable." The next stop for oil prices? JPMorgan also struggles to provide an answer! The war's endgame is hard to predict, and the "temporary supply disruption" assumption faces a reset. JPMorgan said that Middle East energy risks are expanding from restricted passage through the Strait to damage to alternative transportation routes themselves, making it increasingly difficult to sustain the premise that "the conflict causes only temporary disruption and supply quickly recovers." The bank's analysts said in a report that several economic red lines it had previously assumed the U.S. government would be unwilling to crossincluding oil prices rising above $100 per barrel, gasoline prices approaching $5 per gallon, and surging U.S. Treasury yieldshave already appeared, making the exit strategy even less clear. The analysts said global inventory buffers have been reduced during the war, but there is still enough buffer space to limit further increases in crude oil prices. However, the bank estimates that if Middle East supply flows remain at current levels, oil prices in the fourth quarter of 2026 and in December could be $7 and $8 higher, respectively, than current forecasts of about $80 and $78 per barrel. Individual Stock News NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) growth is far from over? Jensen Huang expects chip sales to double in the next year. NVIDIA Corporation CEO Jensen Huang expects the company's chip sales to potentially double from current levels in the next year as AI technology accelerates its penetration across industries, indicating that global demand for AI infrastructure remains in strong growth. Despite growing recent market attention to the potential risks of rapid AI development, Huang remains optimistic about the industry outlook. NVIDIA Corporation's previously announced business outlook also shows that AI demand remains robust. The company forecast last month that sales would grow about 70% year over year in the next fiscal year. NVIDIA Corporation also said that if it can obtain enough chip supply to meet rapidly growing market demand, its revenue could even double. SpaceX (SPCX.US)'s AI unit eyes "bankruptcy data"! It plans to acquire customer and operational information from distressed startups to step up Grok model training. According to people familiar with the matter, Musk's SpaceX has internally discussed buying customer and operational data from struggling or already failed startups, hoping to obtain more high-quality data at relatively low cost to improve the performance of its artificial intelligence models. Although SpaceXAI is studying ways to obtain more external data sources, Musk's vast business empire itself remains an important data source for Grok, including even information generated by SpaceX employees. This statement means that SpaceXAI's future data strategy may adopt a parallel "internal + external" model: on the one hand, it will continue to use data generated by Musk-affiliated companies and platforms such as SpaceX and X; on the other hand, it will further expand the breadth and specialization of training data by purchasing external datasets. Lucid (LCID.US) CEO: Restructuring advisor partnership concludes, path to profitability emerges. Lucid CEO Napoli said the electric vehicle maker has completed its work with restructuring advisory firm AlixPartners LLP, indicating that the troubled company has a clearer path toward turning around operations. The company had brought in AlixPartners to help it achieve its goal of saving $1.4 billion in cash this year. Napoli has been conducting an operational review of the company, seeking to optimize the business, cut costs, and ensure the smooth launch of its new midsize vehicle. Napoli took the helm at Lucid earlier this year and has already taken measures including large-scale cost cuts, leadership changes, and layoffs to cope with weak U.S. consumer demand. Key Economic Data and Event Preview Beijing time 21:15 U.S. August industrial production month-over-month (%)