GS Blekos Marketcolour FOMC Consumer Snippets Saint Gobain CVC Trucks

GS Blekos - Marketcolour FOMC Consumer Snippets Saint Gobain CVC Trucks 16 Sep 2026 Ioannis Blekos · Goldman Sachs · Executive Director, Global Banking & Markets 16 Sep 2026

Good Morning, US equities ended Tuesday in the red amid weak breadth as rates and oil weigh on risk appetite - SPX -45bps to 7585 (9/11 sectors -ve, 1

US equities ended Tuesday in the red amid weak breadth as rates and oil weigh on risk appetite - SPX -45bps to 7585 (9/11 sectors -ve, 10Y UST at 4.99%, Consumer Discretionary -1.76%, Energy +2.26%, WTI +4.4% 10th up day last 11 days), NDX -65bps to 28,937 (broke through its 50- and 100-dma), RTY -76bps to 2870. In Europe, equities drifted lower for a second consecutive session (SXXP -30bps, SX5E -40bps). Financials Services (SXFP -1.9%) / Banks (SX7E -90bps) were the single largest drag on European equities. Against that backdrop, defense stocks stood out as a rare pocket of strength — GSSBDEFE the best performing industry today (+2.2%), supported by reports of US inventory shortfalls and news that Japan could raise defense spending.

Interesting / Crypto: Clarity act failed after a 49-50 vote was held in Senate; will have to be reintroduced to Congress; unlikely before the end of the year as midterm elections approach. Link

FOMC / expect a 25bp hike; additional hikes are possible but are not our baseline; we think that the FOMC will want to avoid the market reaction that would likely follow from remaining on hold when the market is pricing a nearly 90% chance of a hike; we do not see a strong economic case for raising the funds rate; we continue to think that all of the overshoot of the 2% target can be attributed to one-time factors whose impact is likely to fade. Link

Flow: Asset managers finished $454mm better for sale with supply in macro products, and tech vs. small demand in comm. services, financials, and consumer discretionary. Hedge Funds finished relatively flat with supply in Consumer discretionary and financials vs. small demand in consumer staples and macro products.

CTAs: Our CTA model estimates there has been ~$24bln of selling of global equities in the last week- $10bln of which was in Europe. We are around 50% done...Chart below.

Consumer Conference Snippets: The most used word by most companies was “resilient.” It was the opening comment from the biggest retailer here (WMT). It was the same form V/MA at Communacopia last week.

Despite the really negative price action the last month, I do not think investors are super bearish the health of the consumer. It more feels investors are more bearish they can make money being long consumer (i.e “relative growth vs other sectors” than ever before.)

Dividends: We raise our bottom-up EURO STOXX 50 forecasts to 194.7 for 2027, and to 218.3 for 2028 - approximately 6 index points above the May estimates.

Saint-Gobain (N / PT EUR85 / 20% Upside): We reduce FY26/27/28E EPS by -2%/-2%/-0% reflecting more modest volume assumptions and now forecast flat 3Q volumes, primarily driven by lower Americas expectations following a weaker start to the storm season. We forecast FY26E EBITDA margin of 15.1% versus company guidance of >15% and Visible Alpha Consensus Data of 15.3% Link

CVC (CL BUY / PT EUR20.90 / 60% Upside): We view the announcement as an important positive milestone for the group that provides greater visibility on medium-term FRE growth and reaffirms the strength of CVC's flagship fundraising franchise. Against this improved earnings visibility, we continue to view the shares as undemanding at current levels and reiterate our Buy rating Link

Trucks / IAA colour - takeaways from IAA are in general cautious on the sector, drawing on the competition concerns and the risk to high margin services from the BEV transition: Market environment remains supportive in both North America and Europe despite Germany lagging behind; mixed views on US pricing. BEV products are ready, but grid capacity constraints are slowing the build-out of charging infrastructure across Europe and therefore BEV penetration. European truck OEMs mostly have exclusive dealer networks and see service capabilities and dealer density as their biggest moat against Chinese truck OEMs, even for…