Markets & Finance

Nestlé has signed an agreement to divest seven mainstream vitamins, minerals, and supplements brands — including Nature's Bounty, Osteo Bi-Flex, and Nuun — to private equity firm Yellow Wood Partners for $1.0 billion, with closing expected by the first half of 2027. The divested portfolio generated $1.2 billion in sales in 2025 and includes associated U.S. private-label operations and manufacturing assets, while Nestlé retains its premium brands Solgar and Pure Encapsulations. The deal is part of a broader portfolio transformation at Nestlé that also includes a planned joint venture for its Waters and Premium Beverages business, and triggered a CHF 1.3 billion write-down when the disposal group was classified as held for sale in its H1 2026 report.

SoftBank's SB Energy filed a preliminary Form S-1 on August 31, 2026, disclosing $3 billion in Nvidia investment structured as a prepaid forward contract and a concurrent share purchase, plus OpenAI warrants and a board designation right contingent on OpenAI maintaining above 5% ownership. The filing leaves offering price, share count, and net proceeds blank, meaning no valuation or trading date is confirmed. SB Energy reported a $3.2 billion net loss for the first half of 2026, driven largely by warrant liability revaluation, against $439 billion in reported backlog with no data-center capacity yet operational.

Palo Alto Networks reported Q4 FY2026 revenue of $3.41 billion, beating consensus estimates, while non-GAAP gross margin contracted 100 basis points year over year to 74.8%, with management flagging that cloud-hosting costs will grow faster than total revenue in FY2027 due to rising SaaS mix. The company guided for FY2027 revenue of $14.10 to $14.20 billion and held its non-GAAP operating margin target at 29.5%, but shares fell approximately 6.9% from the prior close in combined regular and after-hours trading on September 1. The results illustrate how a cybersecurity platform shift toward SaaS can simultaneously accelerate top-line growth and compress near-term margins, a trade-off investors are now pricing in.

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.79% on September 1, 2026, its highest level since January 2025, while futures markets priced roughly a 68% probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike at the September 15–16 FOMC meeting. The repricing followed hawkish remarks from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh on August 28 and Governor Michael Barr on September 1, alongside firm economic data including a July JOLTS reading of 7.271 million job openings and an August ISM manufacturing PMI of 54.6%. August jobs, PPI, and CPI reports due before the meeting are the next scheduled data points likely to shift those odds.