Bonsoir mes amis,
August is behind us, and I have returned to a rainy England after a month in sunny Cannes. The Summer of Rippy, which I coined back in June, played out exactly as expected. Thin liquidity, disbelief still thick in the air, and every dip bought before it even had time to settle. I let it rip without me for a month while I was in Cannes, glass of Cotes de Provence in hand, watching the same movie I’ve seen before: shorts bleeding, systematics chasing and instos still underweight.
And of course, while I was away, the usual choir on Twitter and Substack kept warning about August seasonality and blood on the streets. Instead, the only blood was in the shorts.
But holidays are over, and so is summer. The tape is back in focus, and September doesn’t wait for anyone. This is when flows reset, when positioning starts to matter again, and when the next phase of this bull market could get decided.
And here’s the thing: coming back from Cannes with fresh eyes, I can see what the noise has been hiding. The setup staring us in the face isn’t just bullish, or bearish; it’s potentially explosive. I’m talking about a positioning dynamic so extreme, so obvious, and a target that I’m willing to put my balls on the line again.
September has a reputation for a reason. It's when vacations end, when real money comes back to work, when the thin liquidity game stops, and positioning gets tested. And after watching this market from 600 miles away for a month, I'm seeing cracks that weren't there before.
So many inbounds about NVDA last week, but I was swamped after my son was in a hospital in France after suffering a febrile seizure. I've read each of your kind messages. He’s okay now, but I want to say thank you. I simply don't have time to respond meaningfully to every message I received, but I genuinely appreciate the kind words from all of you.
NVIDIA’s latest quarter was strong, though not without some mixed signals. Revenue came in at $46.7B, above expectations, with EPS at $1.05. The real story was in the mix: Data Centre posted $41.1B, but within that, compute revenue actually declined slightly while networking surged (+46% Q/Q) as NVLink, InfiniBand, and Ethernet adoption accelerated. Gaming also outperformed, supported by Blackwell supply, while ProViz and OEM/IP provided small but notable upside. Margins held firm at 72.7%, with guidance pointing to 73.5% next quarter. The October outlook of $54B in revenue was a shade below buyside whispers but remains healthy, particularly with no China contribution assumed.
The transition from Hopper to Blackwell is proving less linear than many anticipated. Blackwell growth has been lighter, offset by demand for legacy Hopper units. Inventory also spiked, reflecting the ramp to GB300 racks and sovereign AI projects. That said, management reiterated a bullish long-term view, highlighting $3–4T in AI infrastructure spend by decade-end and >$20B in sovereign AI revenues this year. While China remains somewhat unresolved, NVDA holds licenses but isn’t yet shipping H20. Management hinted at potential $2–5B per quarter upside once policies are codified. Overall, despite some noise in product transitions and geopolitics, the demand backdrop remains extraordinarily robust, with networking strength underscoring NVIDIA’s expanding moat in AI infrastructure.
For those asking, I am still holding my recent SPX and META trades.
Anyway… let’s get into it. This is the post that could make (or break) your September. (Or mine.)