Top Stories This Morning: Lululemon Shares Plunge 18%; OpenAI to Invest $1 Billion in Cybersecurity

Lululemon’s stock fell more than 18% following a weak quarterly earnings report and yet another downward revision to its annual forecast. OpenAI will allocate $1 billion to provide access to its cybersecurity tools, training, and technical support for organizations that protect critical infrastructure. Read about these and other topics in our roundup of key events as of the morning of September 4.

The European Union has backed the U.S. operation “Economic Outcast,” which aims to cut Iran off from the global financial system, according to CNBC. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that the pressure will continue until all of Tehran’s financial channels are cut off, and threatened secondary sanctions against countries and banks that help Iran conduct transactions.

Meanwhile, South Korea is considering the possibility of U.S. military assistance to resume commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, including the deployment of troops to the region, according to Reuters.

Amid new U.S. strikes and Iran's retaliatory attacks, shipping in the strait remains limited.

Oil prices are on track for their biggest weekly gain since July, according to Bloomberg . The resumption of hostilities in the Middle East has heightened concerns about prolonged disruptions to energy supplies.

Futures for the benchmark Brent crude were trading just under $96 per barrel on Friday, September 4. Since the start of the week, they have risen by more than 7%. Retail diesel prices in the U.S. reached their highest level since mid-2022 this week, while diesel stocks in Europe are significantly below typical levels for this time of year, the agency reports.

"The oil market is 'reassessing its vulnerability,'" said Priyanka Sachdeva, head of market analytics at Phillip Nova in Singapore. “The risk premium can only fall so far as long as the underlying security issue remains unresolved,” she said.

Lululemon’s stock fell more than 18% after the company reported weak quarterly results and once again lowered its full-year forecast, according to CNBC. Revenue in the second fiscal quarter fell 4% to $2.42 billion, while comparable sales dropped 9%. The company attributed the weak performance in part to negative comments on social media and a decline in demand for leggings.

Lululemon now expects annual revenue of $10.35–10.5 billion, down from its previous forecast of $11–11.15 billion. The company estimates that earnings per share will reach only $9.48–9.73, whereas it had previously anticipated $10.95–11.15.

OpenAI will allocate $1 billion to provide subsidized access to its cybersecurity tools, training, and technical support for organizations that protect critical services, according to Reuters. Initially, the program will cover water utilities, electric grid operators, state and local governments, small banks, and nonprofits in the U.S., and will later expand to partner countries.

The company warned that cyberattacks using AI will become significantly more frequent and sophisticated in the coming months. The initiative was launched amid growing attention to the security of AI models, including following a July incident in which an OpenAI AI agent hacked into Hugging Face’s systems during testing.

Anthropic will increase its credit line to $15 billion ahead of its IPO, Bloomberg has learned. By comparison, the credit line the company secured last year was $2.5 billion. This is one of the final steps before publicly filing for an initial public offering, the agency notes.

Anthropic expects to raise at least as much as SpaceX, whose $86.2 billion IPO set a record, according to Bloomberg sources. The annual revenue growth rate of the developer of Claude already exceeds $65 billion, having increased more than sevenfold since the end of last year.

— Japan's broad-market Topix index rose 0.1%, while the Nikkei 225 gained 1.2%.

— Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 2.1%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 Index rose 0.7%.

— In South Korea, the KOSPI rose 1.7%, and the KOSDAQ rose 3.1%.

— Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.1%.

— Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.2%, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures remained virtually unchanged.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor