Evening Briefing: Americas

Oracle shares tumbled after a report that the software maker’s profit margin in its cloud computing business is lower than many on Wall Street have been estimating.

While Oracle generated roughly $900 million in revenue from the rental of servers powered by Nvidia chips during the three months ended in August, the company only managed about $125 million in gross profit, The Information reported, citing internal corporate documents. Oracle shares fell as much as 7.1% on Tuesday before paring much of the decline, while Nvidia dipped as much as 0.6%.

In some cases, Oracle was losing “considerable” amounts of money on its rentals of smaller quantities of Nvidia chips, including both new and old graphics processing units, according to the report. Tech giants dragged down the S&P 500 Tuesday, with losses accelerating on the Oracle news. Here’s your markets wrap. —Jordan Parker Erb

What You Need to Know Today

Carlyle Group is releasing its own estimates of US economic data. The investment manager is stepping into the economic data void left by the US government shutdown with a grim read on the labor market. The US Labor Department’s September employment report, whose scheduled release on Oct. 3 was among those that have been postponed since the shutdown began last week, was expected by economists in a Bloomberg poll to show a 54,000 increase in nonfarm payrolls from August’s total of about 159 million. Carlyle estimates that just 17,000 jobs were created, among the weakest results since the US economy emerged from the 2020 recession.

Consumers see higher inflation in the year ahead, with signs that lower and middle-income households are feeling most of the burden of rising price pressures, according to a monthly survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Expectations for consumer price increases one year ahead jumped to 3.4% in September from 3.2% in the prior month. The increase was most significant for households earning less than $50,000, and for consumers with at most a high school education.

JPMorgan was hit with $115 million in lawyers’ bills for Charlie Javice and a second executive convicted of defrauding the bank, yet another twist in a years-long legal saga that’s captivated Wall Street. The defense tab, revealed last week when Javice was sentenced to seven years in prison, is roughly two-thirds of the $175 million the bank paid for Javice’s student-finance company, Frank. A Delaware court previously ruled that the terms of that deal required the bank to cover Javice and co-defendant Olivier Amar’s legal costs.

The growth of global goods trade is expected to slow sharply next year, according to the World Trade Organization. The WTO said merchandise trade volumes are forecast to rise 2.4% this year, but expects a 0.5% rise in 2026, attributing the expected slowdown in 2026 to the delayed drag on international commerce from US President Donald Trump’s trade war.

US Supreme Court justices, led by Samuel Alito, expressed skepticism about “conversion therapy” bans. Hearing arguments in Washington Tuesday, the court’s Republican-appointed justices and one Democratic-appointed justice questioned the constitutionality of Colorado’s ban on what critics call “conversion therapy,” or attempts by counselors to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. A Christian counselor is challenging the 2019 law as violating her free speech rights.