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Wall Street sinks as US stocks fall toward their worst day in a month

Summary

  • slid 1.1%, heading for worst day in a month
  • dropped 412 points; Nasdaq fell 1.3%
  • Nvidia, Big Tech among the heaviest market drags
  • Rising pressured stock valuations
  • Higher yields make investors less willing to pay steep stock prices

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is sinking on Tuesday as rising pressure from the bond market pulls U.S. stocks further from their records.

The S&P 500 fell 1.1% and was on track for its worst day in a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 412 points, or 0.9%, as of 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% lower. All three are still relatively close to their recently set all-time highs.

Big Tech companies led the market lower. They’ve been soaring for years on expectations that they’ll continue to dominate the economy, but they also shot so high that critics say their prices became too expensive.

Nvidia, whose chips are powering much of the world’s move into artificial-intelligence technology, fell 2.9% and was the single strongest force pulling the S&P 500 downward. Amazon sank 1.7%, and Alphabet dropped 1.5%.

The overall stock market felt pressure from rising yields in the bond market, where the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.27% from 4.23% late Friday. When bonds are paying more in interest, investors are less willing to pay high prices for stocks.

Longer-term bond yields are on the rise around the world, in part because of worries about how difficult it will be for governments to repay their growing mountains of debt.

In the United States, longer-term Treasury yields are feeling added pressure from President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve for not cutting sooner. The fear is that a less independent Fed will be less likely to make the unpopular decisions needed to keep inflation under control over the long term, such as keeping short-term rates higher than investors would like.

Tuesday was also the first opportunity for trading after a federal appeals court ruled late Friday that Trump overstepped his legal authority when announcing sweeping tariffs on almost every country on Earth, though it left the tariffs in place for now.

Tariffs have certainly created confusion across the global economy and may have hurt the U.S. job market. But less income from them could also force the U.S. government to borrow more to pay its bills, according to Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

In another signal of increasing worries in financial markets, the price of gold rose to touch another record. The metal has often provided a haven for investors in times of uncertainty.

Treasury yields briefly trimmed their gains after a report on Tuesday said U.S. manufacturing shrank by more last month than economists expected. Many companies told the Institute for Supply Management that tariffs are continuing to make conditions chaotic.

“Too much uncertainty for us and our customers regarding tariffs and the U.S./global economy,” one company in the chemical products industry said, while noting that orders across most product lines have weakened.

The worse-than-expected data on manufacturing could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to cut its main interest rate for the first time this year at its next meeting in a couple of weeks. That’s the widespread expectation among traders, though several economic reports coming this week could change things.

The highlight for the week is coming on Friday, when economists expect a report to show that U.S. employers upped their hiring by a bit last month. Last month’s weaker-than-expected jobs report raised worries about the economy and cranked up expectations for coming cuts to rates by the Fed.

On Wall Street, Constellation Brands tumbled 7.1% after the beer, wine and spirits company warned that it’s seen a slowdown in purchases of its high-end beers, particularly among its Hispanic customers. That pushed it to slash its forecast for profit this fiscal year.

fell 7.5% after announcing that it’s splitting into two, a decade after a merger of the brands created one of the biggest food companies on the planet.

One of the companies will include shelf stable meals and include brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and . The other will include the , Kraft Singles and brands. The official names of the two companies will be released later.

Among the market’s few gainers was , which rose 1.6% after an investment firm said it sent suggestions to the company’s board to reaccelerate its growth and boost financial performance. The investor, Elliott Investment Management, has a history of buying into companies and then pushing for big changes that can lead to better stock performance.

In stock markets abroad, indexes slumped across Europe, with Germany’s DAX losing 2.3%. That followed a more mixed finish in Asia, where indexes rose 0.9% in Seoul but fell 0.5% in Hong Kong.

Nuclear fusion company raises $863M, much bound for Chesterfield

SUMMARY:

  • Commonwealth Fusion Systems () raised $863 million in a Series B2 round
  • Funds will build the $2.5 billion in
  • Funding was backed by major investors, including and
  • CFS has raised about $3 billion in total to date

Massachusetts-based fusion company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which is planning to build the world’s first grid-scale fusion energy plant in Chesterfield County, announced it has raised $863 million in a Series B2 fundraising round, much of which will be used to construct the $2.5 billion-plus plant.

CFS will use some of the funds to progress development on the 400-megawatt fusion power plant in Chesterfield, dubbed ARC, which is expected to be in operation in the 2030s.

Last month, the county’s unanimously approved a conditional use permit for the facility. The power plant is slated to be built on a roughly 94-acre property at 1201 Battery Brooke Parkway in the James River Industrial Center. Dominion Energy owns the site, but CFS has signed an option-to-lease agreement.

The county’s board of supervisors is scheduled to vote on the permit Sept. 17. CFS plans to begin construction on ARC in the late 2020s and anticipates that ARC will start generating carbon-free power for the grid in the early 2030s.

The company says the $863 million raised is the largest amount any deep tech and energy company has raised since CFS’s $1.8 billion Series B round in 2021. In total, the company has raised close to $3 billion, which it says is one-third of the total capital invested in private fusion companies worldwide. CFS said the latest funding round was “oversubscribed,” which means the company received more money than it initially intended to raise.

CFS intends to use other portions of the funding raised to complete SPARC, a fusion demonstration machine being built at its headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts. That machine is expected to start operations in 2026.

“Investors recognize that CFS is making fusion power a reality,” Bob Mumgaard, CFS CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “They see that we are executing and delivering on our objectives. This funding recognizes CFS’ leadership role in developing a new technology that promises to be a reliable source of clean, almost limitless energy — and will enable investors to have the opportunity to capitalize on the birth of a new global industry.”

Several international investors joined the most recent funding round, including subsidiaries of Morgan Stanley, Nvidia, Galaxy Digital and Dubai’s FFA Private Bank. Stanley Druckenmiller, a billionaire former chairman and president of Duquesne Capital, invested in the company for the first time, and a consortium of 12 Japanese companies led by Mitsui & Co. also participated.

Earlier investors increased their stakes as well, including Google, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Starlight Ventures, Emerson Collective and Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO.

Google signed an agreement this summer to buy 200 megawatts of (half the facility’s expected power output) from the Chesterfield facility. Google will also have the option to offtake power from future ARC plants.

Spun off of MIT in 2018, CFS has more than 1,000 employees. It is one of more than 40 companies currently developing fusion technologies.

GMU board says it wants to negotiate with DOE

George Mason University’s board of visitors said in a brief statement Friday that it wishes to negotiate a resolution to the ‘s finding that the university violated law.

On Aug. 22, the DOE announced that George Mason had violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by “illegally using race and other immutable characteristics in university practices and policies, including hiring and promotion,” citing President Gregory Washington’s policies that the federal department sees as biased toward people of color and discriminatory against white employees.

In order to settle the matter, the DOE demanded that Washington issue a statement to the university promising “that GMU will conduct all recruitment, hiring, promotion and tenure decisions in compliance with Title VI,” and that the statement must include a personal apology.

However, Washington’s attorney, Douglas F. Gansler, wrote in an 11-page letter to George Mason’s board that the five-week investigation launched in July was “very incomplete” and the report contained “gross mischaracterizations of statements made by Dr. Washington and outright omissions related to the two-plus-year DEI review process that the board of visitors and Dr. Washington engaged in.”

Gansler said that if Washington apologized, the university would be open to “further legal risk in concurrent and further investigations by other agencies,” including two open investigations launched in July by the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division. The DOE also initiated a probe into allegations that the university failed to protect Jewish students and staff from antisemitic incidents. So far, only the July 10 DOE findings have been released.

According to the board’s statement on Aug. 29, the board has informed the DOE it would like to negotiate with the federal agency through its legal counsel — Mike Fragoso, a partner of Torridon Law, the firm started by former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr — and Washington’s attorney, Gansler.

“The board remains committed to ensuring that George Mason complies with all federal civil rights law and remains hopeful that a favorable resolution can be reached,” the statement concludes.

Meanwhile, Mason’s board of visitors is down to only six confirmed members following a state Senate committee vote last week to reject six new appointees by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. According to state law, a board must have eight members present to have a quorum.

The DOE did not respond immediately to a request for comment Tuesday.

Kraft Heinz to split a decade after megafood merger

Summary

NEW YORK (AP) — is splitting into two companies a decade after they joined in a massive merger that created one of the world’s biggest food companies on the planet.

One of the companies will include shelf stable meals and include brands such as Heinz, and Kraft Mac & Cheese, Kraft Heinz said Tuesday. The other will include brands such as Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables. The names of the two companies will be released later.

Kraft Heinz said in May that it was conducting a strategic review of the company, signaling a potential split.

“Kraft Heinz’s brands are iconic and beloved, but the complexity of our current structure makes it challenging to allocate capital effectively, prioritize initiatives and drive scale in our most promising areas,” Executive Chair Miguel Patricio said in a statement.

The path to the merger of Kraft and Heinz began in 2013, when billionaire investor Warren Buffett teamed up with Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital to buy H.J. Heinz Co. At the time, the $23 billion deal was the most expensive ever in the .

3G was also behind the formation of Restaurant Brands International — a merger of Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes — and Anheuser-Busch InBev. It’s known for strict cost controls and so-called zero-based budgeting, which requires all expenses to be justified each quarter.

The deal was intended to help Heinz, which was founded in 1869 in Pittsburgh, expand sales of its condiments and sauces on grocery store shelves. Heinz’s new owners also set about cutting costs, laying off hundreds of workers within months.

At the same time Kraft, based in Chicago, sought for a partner after a 2011 split from its snack division, which became Mondelez International.

In 2015, Buffett and 3G decided to merge Heinz with Kraft. The merger created the 5th largest food and beverage company in the world, with annual revenue of $28 billion. Buffett and 3G each contributed $5 billion for a special dividend for Kraft shareholders.

But the combined company struggled, despite layoffs of thousands of employees and other cost-cutting measures. Even at the time of the merger, many consumers were shifting away from the kinds of highly processed packaged foods that Kraft sells, like Velveeta cheese and Kool-Aid.

Kraft Heinz also had trouble distinguishing its products from cheaper store brands. At Walmart, a 14-ounce bottle of Heinz ketchup costs $2.98; the same size bottle of Walmart’s Great Value brand is 98 cents.

In 2019, Kraft Heinz slashed the value of its Oscar Meyer and Kraft brands by $15.4 billion, citing operational costs and supply chain problems. But many investors blamed the company’s leadership, saying its zeal for cost-cutting was hurting brand innovation.

In 2021, Kraft Heinz sold both its Planters nut business and its natural cheese business, vowing to reinvest the money into higher-growth brands like P3 protein snacks and Lunchables.

But the company’s net revenue has fallen every year since 2020, when it saw a pandemic-related bump in sales. In April, Kraft Heinz lowered its full-year sales and earnings guidance, citing weaker customer spending in the U.S. and the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Kraft Heinz has no plans to change its current headquarter locations in Chicago and Pittsburgh. It currently expects the transaction to close in the second half of 2026.

Shares of the company rose slightly before the market open.

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