Hey Snackers,
An old-timey crime is making a bit of a comeback. Bloomberg reports that thanks to the pandemic disrupting the street-corner drug trade, train robbery has seen a modern resurgence over the past few years, as organized crews looked to replace lost income.Â
Thieves steal about $200 million in goods a year, the rail industry estimates focusing on relatively small, easy-to-sell items like shipments of Nikes, Milwaukee Tools, and alcohol. Car tires aren’t necessarily the most convenient thing to lug around, but the right ones sure are expensive, and CSX says almost $1 million worth of tires have been boosted from its railcars in the past three years.Â
If you’re imaging dashing feats of high plains daring, though, you can stop. The crimes are focused on the more mundane environment of urban train depots, where modern train schedules ensure miles-long lines of trains are sitting at a standstill.
The S&P 500 fell about half a percentage point, while the Nasdaq 100 dropped just under 0.2% Monday as US Treasury yields rose due fears of persistent inflation.Â
Credit markets have a “debt” problem, not a “risk” problem
People, to paraphrase the old finance blogger tagline, are worried about the bond market.Â
Specifically, the AI bond market, a combination which is itself a rather new thing. There’s already been about $500 billion in AI-linked bond issuances so far in 2026, up from $120 billion in 2025. Put another way, that 2026 figure is around 30 times more than what was issued in 2024 and there are still four months left in the year.Â
As that cascade of debt has flowed into the market, something strange has happened: credit ratings don’t quite mean what they used to for bond investors.Â
In a recent note to clients, Amanda Lynam, the chief credit strategist at Goldman Sachs, pointed out that ratings are “imperfect proxy” for how investors want to be positioned: So far this year, lower-rated BBB and single A bonds are providing superior excess returns compared to higher-rated AAA and AA bonds.
Sherwood’s Luke Kawa explains [emphasis his]:Â
Corporate bonds are of course credit instruments, but they are also very much bonds (it’s right there in the name). As such, their values are impacted by both the ebbs and flows of how risky investors think it is to lend to individual companies as well as changes in risk-free rates. The pick-up in issuance year to date has come primarily from bonds with higher credit ratings, which are underperforming lower-rated counterparts.
Even after taking into account that higher-quality debt is more negatively impacted by higher interest rates, those bonds are still underperforming riskier debt in 2026! So the nascent trend is that riskier bonds are actually "higher quality" because they're less bond and more risk.
As Lynman points out, for both investment-grade grade and high-yield bonds, the higher-rated corporate issuers are responsible for a historically large share of new debt, thanks to all the AI-debt coming to market. Indeed, investment-grade set a third-straight monthly record in August, Bloomberg reports, driven by AI-fueled issuance.
Those bonds are seen as less risky, which means lower yields over the risk-free rate, and they tend to have longer duration. Those two factors mean higher rates hit them harder than more risky, shorter duration bonds issued by lower-rated companies. Â
The Takeaway
The hyperscalers’ capex – and the US government’s debt – are someone else’s profits, Kawa notes. The time to watch out, he argues, is if there aren’t sufficient returns, “or if all of the spending associated with the increase in indebtedness fuels inflation, and that inflation causes the central bank to jack up interest rates until overall activity succumbs to tighter policy.”
— Ben Walsh
Snacks Shots
đź“ŠMidterms: Markets right now are pricing in a 49% chance* that the Democrats sweep both the House and Senate in the upcoming midterms, with a 16% chance that the Republicans hold both chambers.Â
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.
That’s the percentage of goods spending Americans are now devoting to their hobbies, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, representing an upward shift in time and money spent on hobbies across ages and generations.
What else we’re Snackin’
Rubik’s Cube’s parent company, which also apparently produces the canine copaganda sensation Paw Patrol, is buying an AI sticker company, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Esquire says the Polymarket bar is America’s future, whether we like it or not.
Meta faces potentially “astronomical” costs in its legal fight with California, CNBC reports.
Snack Fact of the Day
Wildfire smoke is more damaging to human health than previously thought, recent research has shown, because it contains not just the very small particles known as PM2.5 that penetrate deep into the respiratory and cardiovascular system, but also carries other materials with it, such as lead, mercury and formaldehyde.
Tuesday
Home Depot poised to release earnings ahead of the open. Rosenblatt AI summit continues. Navitas Semiconductor, Applied Optoelectronics, and Arista Networks scheduled to speak.