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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading on August 12, 2024 in New York City. 

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

What you need to know today

Sharp decline
Wall Street fell ahead of
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The S&P 500 dropped 0.89% after coming within striking distance of its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 0.43% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.67%. All three indexes had traded higher during the session. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed nearly 9 basis points to 3.862%, while U.S. oil prices rose 1.42% after erasing most of their 2024 gains.

September rate cut
Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker endorsed an interest rate cut for September during an interview with CNBC at the Fed’s Jackson Hole retreat. His comments follow minutes from the central bank’s last meeting indicating growing confidence in inflation trends and concerns about labor market weakness. “I think it means this September we need to start a process of moving rates down,” Harker said, adding the Fed should ease “methodically and signal well in advance.” Harker is undecided between a 25 or 50 basis point reduction. CNBC’s Jeff Cox has more on what to expect from Powell’s speech.  

Peloton soars
Peloton posted its first sales increase in nine quarters, driven by cost-cutting measures and a focus on profitability. Sales rose by 0.2% to $643.6 million during its fiscal fourth quarter. The troubled connected fitness company also narrowed its losses to $30.5 million, compared to a loss of $241.8 million a year ago. Peloton has struggled post-pandemic and is currently run by two board members since former CEO Barry McCarthy resigned earlier this year. The company’s shares shot up as much as 40% after the earnings release.  

Covid jab approval
The Food and Drug Administration has approved updated Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna amid a summer surge of the virus. The vaccine targets the KP.2 strain, a descendant of omicron subvariant JN.1, although it was the dominant strain in May it now accounts for about 3% of cases. However, both drugmakers say the KP.2 jab can produce a stronger response against other variants, such as KP.3 and LB.1.  

Driverless rides
General Motors‘ Cruise has partnered with Uber to offer driverless rides to Uber users as early as next year. The move comes as Cruise attempts to revive its robotaxi venture after a serious accident last year and subsequent investigations, which led to the resignation of its CEO and co-founder. Uber abandoned its own self-driving project after a fatal 2018 incident and now collaborates with other developers like Google‘s Waymo.

[PRO] Bullish signals
With the S&P 500 within touching distance of its July all-time high, Ned Davis Research chief U.S. strategist Ed Clissold suggest stocks could rally after two signals flashed in the stock market’s favor this week.

The bottom line

Whether traders are working from home or in the office, at 10 a.m. ET everything will come to a halt as Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivers one of the most anticipated economic speeches of the year.

With the “vast majority” of Fed members advocating for a rate cut in September, markets are banking on a 100 basis point reduction for 2024. The expectation suggests at least one 50 basis point cut, given that there are only three rate-setting meetings left this year.

George Brown, senior U.S. economist at Schroders, believes Powell will emphasize the risks of being too aggressive with rate cuts.

“I don’t think he’s going to pre-commit to a specific easing path,” Brown told CNBC. “Instead, I think he’s going to frame it as they will be data dependent and they will let the data guide them in terms of their decisions.”

“A lot of his speech will focus on the risks of being too aggressive with rate cuts versus being too late to cut rates — and I think his comments will really focus in on trying to find that middle ground, which helps to maintain or safeguard the economic expansion while ensuring inflation remains contained.” 

Henry Allen, Deutsche Bank macro strategist, thinks the market’s rate cut forecasts for the next year are overly dovish given the current state of the economy. Markets are “pricing 200 bps of cuts in the next year alone and those are the sort of paces you only normally see during a recession, not in a non-recession.”

Despite this, the Fed has faced criticism for keeping rates high for too long, with some arguing that its heavy reliance on data could negatively impact the economy and stocks. 

“A soft landing, the probabilities are going up, and that’s why this should be a benign cutting cycle … good for markets. But I think the key is the Fed getting off data dependence, because data dependence is the reason they missed the inflation turn,” Tom Lee, Fundstrat’s head of research, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in an interview Thursday.

CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Fred Imbert, Gabrielle Fonrouge, Lora Kolodny, Pia Singh, Alex Harring and Spencer Kimball contributed to this report.

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Electreon and Xos to deploy wireless charging for commercial EV deliveries like UPS in Michigan

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Electreon and Xos to deploy wireless charging for commercial EV deliveries like UPS in Michigan

The State of Michigan has announced a new partnership with wireless EV charging specialist Electreon and Commercial EV manufacturer Xos, Inc. Together, the companies have secured funding from the state to expand wireless charging availability for commercial vehicles, including UPS trucks in Detroit.

It’s been nearly a year since the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), the City of Detroit, and Electreon ($ELWS) unveiled the first wireless EV charging roadway in the United States.

Michigan installed Electreon’s wireless inductive-charging coils (seen below) on 14th Street in Detroit between Marantette and Dalzelle streets to charge EVs equipped with Electreon receivers as they drive on the road.

At the time. MDOT and Detroit officials said the road would be used to test and perfect Electreon’s wireless EV charging technology in a real-world environment before “making it available to the public in the next few years.”

While the public will not be able to take advantage of wireless charging just yet, commercial EVs are gaining access thanks to a new partnership between Electreon, Xos ($XOS), and the State of Michigan.

  • Michigan wireless EV charging
  • Michigan wireless EV charging

Michigan progresses as US wireless EV charging leader

When Michigan announced the first wireless EV charging road in the US last year, officials shared hopes that the Great Lakes State and the city of Detroit could become leaders in the innovation and and deployment of such nascent technology.

Following a press release from Electreon, the State of Michigan confirmed details of the new partnership, which now includes commercial EV developer Xos, Inc. as well. The new commercial partnership is supported by $200,000 in funding from the Michigan Mobility Funding Platform (MMFP), building off the state’s “Make it in Michigan: economic strategy, developed by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to invest in the state’s people, places and projects. 

Through the partnership and coinciding state funding, Electreon will extend its wireless EV charging network and use cases in Michigan. Additionally, Electreon’s technology will be integrated into delivery step vans from Xos in order to “demonstrate wireless charging technological value and its potential to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) in the electrification of commercial truck fleets.” Stefan Tongur, vice president of business development for Electreon, elaborated:

We’re excited to demonstrate how Electreon’s technology can optimize electric fleet usage and showcase the seamless integration of wireless charging into daily fleet operations, minimizing downtime and enabling charging across time and location. We’re proud to do this work in Michigan, a state fostering innovation and sustainable transportation solutions.

In addition to expanding wireless charging on Detroit’s first “electric roadway,” the Michigan project will enable the installation of stationary wireless charging at a UPS facility in Detroit. Xos co-founder and CEO Dakota Semler also spoke:

We are proud to partner with Electreon and support UPS to demonstrate the potential of wireless charging in commercial fleets. This innovative approach will revolutionize how we power our electric vehicles and drive fleet electrification forward.

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Here’s our first look at Jaguar’s new luxury electric 4-door GT [Images]

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Here's our first look at Jaguar's new luxury electric 4-door GT [Images]

The iconic British luxury automaker is undergoing a major brand overhaul. With its official debut around the corner, Jaguar’s electric 4-door GT, the first of its new series, was spotted testing on British roads. The new images give us a closer look at what we can expect from the revamped Jag brand.

Jaguar’s new electric GT makes its first appearance

After building internal combustion-powered sports cars for over 75 years, Jaguar will become an all-electric luxury brand from 2025.

The company announced earlier this year that it will start fresh with an entirely new range of EVs. After killing off the F-Type, E-Pace, XF, and soon the F-Pace SUV, we are finally getting our first look at what the new branding will look like.

Jaguar’s new electric 4-door GT was caught testing on British roads. The camouflaged prototypes reveal a radically different look than the Jag models we are accustomed to.

You can see one of the biggest changes is the low-riding, extended silhouette, as opposed to the crossover SUV and sedan models like the F-Type and I-Pace, Jaguar’s first EV.

The front and rear bumper designs also appear much more aggressive and bold than previous models.

Jaguar's-electric-GT
Jaguar electric 4-door GT prototype (Source: Jaguar Land Rover)

Jaguar’s electric GT is being put through the paces ahead of its debut. It has already completed tens of thousands of testing miles (virtual and real-world) and will soon hit public streets worldwide.

The new model will be built in Solihull, UK, where Jaguar recently ended production of its gas-powered models.

Jaguar's-electric-GT
Jaguar electric 4-door GT prototype (Source: Jaguar Land Rover)

It will be the first to ride on Jaguar’s new JAE (Jaguar Electric Architecture), which will underpin its upcoming lineup of high-end luxury EVs with prices over £100,000 ($130,000). The electric GT will have a range of over 434 miles (700 km) and upwards of 575 hp, making it Jaguar’s most powerful car of all time.

Jaguar will debut its Design Vision Concept at Miami Art Week on December 2, 2024. Next Summer, it’s expected to make its official global debut ahead of deliveries in 2026.

What do you think of Jaguar’s new design based on what’s shown? Are you excited about the brand overhaul? Let us know in the comments below.

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Tesla pushes end-to-end neural networks for highway driving, but only for newer vehicles

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Tesla pushes end-to-end neural networks for highway driving, but only for newer vehicles

Tesla has pushed a new (Supervised) Full Self-Driving update with the promised end-to-end neural networks for highway driving.

However, it’s only for newer vehicles.

“End-to-end” is what Tesla refers to as neural net-powered AI driving the vehicle from vision to controls rather than the controls being explicitly coded. It’s already the case in all widely released versions of (Supervised) Full Self-Driving (FSD) for city driving, but not for highway driving, which uses another software stack.

Tesla originally planned to deliver it for highway driving in October, but it was only delivered to a small number of vehicles.

In its latest AI roadmap, Tesla said that it would come the first week of November instead.

Now, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s head of self-driving and AI, said that the latest release with end-to-end highway driving (v12.5.6.3) has been widely pushed to HW4 vehicle owners:

With the latest release (v12.5.6.3), FSD is using end-to-end neural networks for driving across highways, city streets and parking lots, and has now shipped widely for AI4 vehicles. Highway driving should be smoother, more natural and even safer than the previous explicit control stack. Check out the different driving styles to set speed and lane change preferences. Enjoy and let Tesla AI know if you have any feedback.

However, there’s no word for the millions of HW3 vehicle owners.

In fact, the only thing promised to HW3 vehicles, which Tesla now called AI3, in its last roadmap is this:

Improved v12.5.x models for AI3 city driving

As we have often reported this year, Tesla has reached the limits of the HW3 computer and now needs to optimize the code with every release despite still being far from its promise of unsupervised self-driving.

Electrek’s Take

This is annoying cause I could really use end-to-end on my HW3 car. I am on v12.5.4.2 and it has been a regression from v12.5.4.1 for me, especially on highways.

Yesterday, it almost drove me off-road when taking my highway exit, which is always a bit shaky because it is a short exit and FSD often swings itself into it. It’s a bit awkward, and my girlfriend never likes it, so I disengage FSD before taking the exit when she was with me, but this time, she wasn’t, and I had the new update.

It again swung left before going right into the exit, but this time, it went way too far, and I was in the shoulder by the time I took control.

I took this exit hundreds of times with FSD and it’s the first time it did that.

I am starting to think we won’t see much more improvements to FSD with HW3 cars and there’s no retrofit computer in sight.

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