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Market Data Table

Breakfast News: Apple Folds; Your Wallet Unfolds.

September 10, 2026

Wednesday's Markets
S&P 500 7,636 (-0.48%)
Nasdaq 26,253 (-0.64%)
Dow 52,381 (-0.77%)
Bitcoin $78,250 (-0.37%)

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1. Can Apple Make the Fold Pay?

Chart showing Apple's net profit margin over the past three years, which has hovered between 25% and 30% except for a dip to 15% in Q3 2024.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) spent years watching Samsung sell foldables only to figure out how to sell you the idea of a foldable -- at a premium, with better marketing. That's the real innovation here.

In his very first keynote during the launch of Apple's first foldable iPhone Duo, new CEO John Ternus took a direct jab at Samsung's design ("two phones awkwardly stuck together"). That's a way of saying, "We don't care who got here first; we care who actually got it right."

But is this really about design and software? The $1,999 price tag puts Duo more than 50% above the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Apple isn't trying to win on price or chase the 2% of the market that already buy foldables elsewhere. It is recycling its favorite margin trick that worked for Pro: Price above the rest and let exclusivity justify the gap.

Apple investors will watch two things here. Will Duo cannibalize Pro Max sales by moving existing customers to a pricier bucket (net margin-neutral) or expand Apple's pricing pie through new customers (net margin-positive)?

The third is the one nobody wants to see (except rivals, of course!): Foldables flop, and Apple eats the manufacturing and R&D bills with nothing to show for it.

Team Hidden Gems has a 5-year price prediction of $559.31. Shares trade today around $315.

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2. Anthropic's Safety Doubts Go Public Before Its IPO

Employee Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic on Tuesday, posting a warning on X that AI labs are racing toward self-improving superintelligence and taking what he thinks are unacceptable risks with human lives.

Investors can't model existential risk, but they can model regulation, which is the real threat to AI infrastructure bets. Every dollar spent on the current AI build-out assumes rapid, uninterrupted growth.

None of this argues for selling anything. It argues for knowing what you own. Consider asking yourself two questions:

How much of your portfolio relies on AI spending compounding for years?
Would you comfortably hold those positions if AI spending merely continues rather than accelerates?

If both answers pass the test, stay the course. Long-term investing works because it doesn't require reacting to every headline, and the cheapest time to examine a concentration is while the market is still calm about it.

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3. TSMC Can't Keep Up With Soaring Chip Demand

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM), the chipmaker behind Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Apple's most advanced chips, is struggling to keep up with demand. Its August revenue of 514.8 billion New Taiwan dollars ($16.3 billion) surged 53.3% year over year. It is building 20 new factories at once, four or five times its normal pace.

The bull case: In a clear pricing-power signal, demand is outrunning supply on TSMC's most advanced nodes. It's setting the terms, not the customer. Revenue has now accelerated for four straight months, suggesting the AI capacity crunch is a sustained state, not a one-quarter spike.
The margin question for 2027: Analysts expect a 65.5% gross margin in 2027, down from 66.4% now. Two-nanometer chips and overseas fabs each shave off a few points. A $60 billion-plus capital expenditure budget piles more pressure on profits through depreciation. Can pricing power, including hikes pushed into early 2027, cushion that drag? It's a wait-and-watch.

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4. Adobe and Oracle Headline a Busy Earnings Night

Gear up for Adobe's (NASDAQ:ADBE) and Oracle's (NYSE:ORCL) earnings tonight, already previewed in Tuesday's Breakfast News. Other notable earnings you'd want to keep an eye on:

Copart (NASDAQ:CPRT) beat earnings estimates last quarter, but softer insurance auction volumes didn't sit well with investors. That's the trend to watch out for tonight. Fool contributing analyst Jeff Santoro noted last month the net income margin for the Rule Breakers rec "has stayed very consistent." He also said, "That is something I like to see in businesses. If your top line growth slows and you're able to remain as profitable as you were before, that tells me you have good cost controls."
Descartes Systems (NASDAQ:DGSX) -- a recommendation by Team Hidden Gems -- expects its Global Trade Intelligence segment to outperform. Tariffs and sanctions are a boon for this logistics software company, which helps businesses navigate the mess of cross-border trade, customs, and compliance. Investors will watch for management's comments on AI agents.
RH (NYSE:RH), the luxury home furnishings retailer, has dealt with tariff exposure all year. Key things to watch in its upcoming report: lingering margin pressure, plus any signal on new tariff actions, including a possible furniture-specific investigation. Add to that RH's expensive push into European galleries, which is squeezing near-term margins even as it builds out the long-term growth story. The stock is on hold as a Stock Advisor recommendation by Team Rule Breakers.

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5. The Near-60% Loss That Led Us to a 60-Bagger

Team Rule Breakers

Rule Breakers recommended Shopify (NASDAQ: SHOP) in February 2016 and again in March 2016. Those recommendations are up 6,180% and 4,890%. But they weren't our first attempt at self-serve, cloud-based e-commerce.

"Thinking like a venture capitalist" is something we often mention when it comes to Rule Breaker investing, and it's great when it means reaping huge returns. But bigger rewards mean bigger risks. VC firms see around half their financings lose money, while just a tiny portion become home runs. That's the "Babe Ruth effect," coined by famed financial strategist Michael Mauboussin: "The frequency of correctness does not matter; it is the magnitude of correctness that matters." One lesson is to separate a business concept from its execution.

The concept came years too early: Several years earlier, we invested in a company called Digital River, which was trying to be Shopify before Shopify was public. Our swing ended up with a 59% loss before we sold, and the company eventually went bankrupt.
Then a better version showed up: We recognized that a good idea got even better because Shopify was serving the long tail of small merchants, not a handful of giant enterprises.

It's OK to be too early on an idea. Seeing a great idea not quite work out can help you recognize a better shot on goal. Our next Digital River is out there. So is our next Shopify.

Did Shopify just give you a spiffy-pop?

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6. Today's Question

Would you buy shares of a first mover -- or wait until one gets it right?

Discuss with friends and family, or become a member to hear what your fellow Fools are saying!