On Monday, shares of Tesla jumped 5.5%, closing at $367.95, up 18% for the month after dropping 26% in July. Why the rise? There were no Wall Street upgrades or price-target changes. One Global exchange-traded fund co-founder Gary Black speculated investors might be anticipating the launch of Cybercab, Tesla's robo-taxi, which lacks a steering wheel.

Enter CEO Elon Musk. He had responded to a weekend tweet about pothole avoidance when using Tesla's Full Self Driving, or FSD, system, with "coming soon." Was that it?

FSD is the basis for Tesla's driver assistance and robo-taxi products. In personal vehicles, it requires human oversight 100% of the time, but FSD can do most of the driving most of the time-including parking. As for robo-taxis, Tesla launched a service in June 2025 and has slowly expanded to more cities. That rollout is one reason Tesla stock has been stuck.

A measured pace is important to maintain safety, paramount for the nascent robo-taxi industry, according to Musk. Tesla and others have to get it right to ensure consumer and regulatory adoption. But self-driving technology isn't easy. Tesla and others have to address thousands of what Tesla's vice president of AI software Ashok Elluswamy calls "edge cases," like potholes, tire treads, rogue traffic cones.

Potholes are tough because they are essentially two-dimensional dark circles on a flat surface. What's more, most self-driving technology prioritizes staying in the center of a lane, although Tesla's software can now successfully navigate double-parked cars. One step at a time.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

Last Week

Markets

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump aired a deal to buy Venezuela's oil reserves, the U.S. and Iran exchanged new strikes, and oil prices rose again. Stocks fell on Monday and bonds sold off globally on inflation and rate-hike fears as the G20 met in North Carolina. Tankers in the Strait of Hormuz were hit on Tuesday, and oil and bond yields, notably in Japan, rose. Stocks advanced midweek before Friday's report of 162,000 jobs added in August, well above expectations. Diesel set a new high at $5.85 a gallon. On the week, the Dow industrials fell 0.3%, the S&P 500 rose a mere 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.4%.

Companies

John Ternus took over as CEO of Apple. Anthropic signed a $35 billion deal for cloud services with Nvidia-backed Lambda. OpenAI said its newest model, Astra, can find and exploit critical cyber vulnerabilities-and poses new risks. Chevron announced plans to invest $7 billion in Venezuelan oil, doubling production. Fast-fashion retailer Shein finished flat on its debut in Hong Kong. Volkswagen approved a plan to cut 100,000 jobs and a number of models in a broad restructuring.

Deals

KKR said it would sell insurer USI Investment Services to Aon, for $17 billion, reaping a $3.3 billion profit....Nvidia announced an acquisition of artificial-intelligence start-up Hugging Face for $13 billion....Elliott Management took a stake in Deutsche Telekom, opposing its merger talks with T-Mobile US.

Next Week

Monday 9/7

Equity and fixed-income markets are closed in observance of Labor Day.

Thursday 9/10

The National Association of Realtors reports existing-home sales for August. Consensus estimate is for a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million homes sold, slightly less than in July. The median existing-home sale price was $434,100 in July, up 2% from a year earlier.

Adobe and Oracle announce their quarterly results.

Friday 9/11

The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the consumer price index for August. Economists forecast a 3.4% year-over-year increase, matching the July figure. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, is expected to rise 2.4%, one-tenth of a percentage point less than previously. A 2.4% annual increase would be the slowest inflation rate since March 2021. With the labor market on solid footing, as evidenced by the 162,000 jobs added in August, this CPI release could be the deciding factor as to whether the Federal Open Market Committee raises the federal-funds rate at its Sept. 15-16 monetary-policy meeting. Traders are currently pricing in a 60% chance the FOMC will raise interest rates at that meeting.

The Numbers

13%

The rise in U.S. crop prices in August tracked by a Bloomberg index, largest rise since July 2012.

9%

The decline in the S&P 500 Momentum Index since July 1, trailing the S&P 500's 2.8% gain.

$480K

The price per year for a new pancreatic cancer drug from Revolution Medicine, or some $663 a tablet.

290 M

Level in barrels of the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve, lowest since 1982, with 47 million barrels set for release.