U.S. stocks finished slightly lower Tuesday as long-term Treasury yields kept grinding higher, and that kept pressure on valuations even after New York Fed President John Williams briefly calmed nerves with dovish comments. The S&P 500 slipped 0.17%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.26%, and the Nasdaq Composite eased 0.09%. The Nasdaq 100 did better, rising about 0.21%, helped by AI hardware names.
Long-end yields keep rising as buyers stay away
Some of the pressure at the long end came from corporate bond supply. Paramount Skydance brought about $32 billion of investment-grade debt to market to finance its Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, which the report called the fifth-largest investment-grade deal ever recorded. SMBC rates strategist Monty Gandhi said, “Part of the move in the long end may be related to this.” CIBC U.S. rates strategy head Michael Cloherty said long-dated bonds already look cheap versus history, but added, “The big buyers are still missing, and we’ve been waiting for more than a month.”
The 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.621% intraday, its highest level since June 2002, and marked a sixth straight session of gains. The 10-year yield climbed to 5.293%, a level not seen since 2007. The front end went the other way after Williams said there was no need to move quickly following the September rate increase. The 2-year yield dropped about 5 basis points to 4.89%, and market odds of an October hike fell from roughly 70% to about 50%.
Confidence data weakens while gold rebounds and the dollar stays firm
On the macro front, the Conference Board’s September consumer confidence index fell to 81.9. That was far below the 89.2 consensus and the weakest reading since 2014. August JOLTS job openings came in at 7.079 million, also below expectations and the lowest in five months. PANews, citing Pantheon Macroeconomics, said fresh pressure on real household income from high energy prices and sticky inflation would be a major drag on growth, and argued the Federal Open Market Committee should remain careful about any further tightening.
Gold climbed 1.6% to about $4,180 an ounce, clawing back part of Monday’s sharp drop. The U.S. dollar index added 0.17% to 101.617, near the top of its range from the past 17 months, and it has gained more than 2% since the beginning of September.
SPR release weighs on crude
In oil, short-term supply relief beat out the war premium. The U.S. Department of Energy said it would loan as much as 40 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the last piece of a cumulative 172 million-barrel release cycle. When that is done, the SPR will drop to around its lowest level since 1982 and sit close to legal and operational red lines, the report said.
WTI crude for November delivery fell 3.48% to $89.38 a barrel, while November Brent lost 2.56% to $102.59. Qatar was also said to be continuing diplomatic mediation between the U.S. and Iran, though talks have made only limited progress on nuclear issues, sanctions, and the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline has restored roughly half of its transport capacity, improving export capability that avoids the Strait of Hormuz. JPMorgan said Middle East crude transport volumes have rebounded to about 98% of pre-war levels, easing worries about a major supply shock.
The report also said the Trump administration is getting squeezed by both gasoline prices and midterm elections. Energy Secretary Chris Wright publicly criticized some European countries for not meeting commitments and urged International Energy Agency members to release the inventories they had promised. The White House also pressed the European Union to tap emergency diesel stockpiles, while Texas declared a diesel price emergency.
AI hardware and memory stocks outperform while Apple lags
Against a weak broader market, money flowed into AI hardware and storage names. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose 1.32% to its highest close since mid-July, with 24 constituents finishing higher. Optical networking stocks bounced, and most memory-linked names moved up. Bernstein said tight DRAM and NAND supply-demand conditions should last through 2027, and it expects average prices for conventional DRAM and NAND to each jump nearly 20% quarter over quarter in the third quarter of 2026.
Part of that mood shift followed Donald Trump’s meeting with technology executives and his opposition to new AI regulation, along with a fresh round of reported OpenAI commercialization figures and product updates. PANews said Trump hosted nearly 20 Silicon Valley executives at the White House and then signed an executive order changing official AI terminology to “Super Intelligence,” or SI, while openly opposing legislative regulation and supporting industry self-regulation.
OpenAI’s annualized recurring revenue was reported at nearly $70 billion. Its run rate is up more than 70% since the start of the third quarter, enterprise sales have doubled since July, and the new consumer revenue added in the third quarter has already topped the full-year 2025 figure. The company also rolled out the always-on autonomous agent Dots, aimed at Meta Muse, and the GPT-6.1 Sol model, described as close to Astra in performance at one-fifth the price. It is also planning to raise at least $30 billion in bridge financing at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion.
Anthropic has filed IPO paperwork with a target valuation above $2 trillion. The filing showed revenue surging even as losses widened, and it revealed a compute agreement with SpaceX worth up to $84.5 billion. Goldman Sachs said Anthropic’s Sonnet 5.5 model is getting close to flagship-level performance, runs more than 30% faster, and costs less. Cheap intelligence. That trend is still going, the bank said.
Citi kept its Buy rating on Meta and its $800 price target, saying commercialization of the Enterprise platform and Muse suggests compute capacity is sufficient through 2027, with a forecast around 14GW. Bank of America warned that AI agents from Meta and others could pull high-value activities like shopping, form filling, and checkout away from Apple’s ecosystem.
PANews said AI agents and cloud services have still lagged so far this week, while semiconductors and software have led. Goldman’s Privorotsky said investors can be wildly bullish on AI, but that view does not matter much until energy and rates are sorted out. BTIG’s Jonathan Krinsky said the gap between market breadth and rates can’t keep stretching forever, and client anxiety is building. Technical pressure is also coming from near-record quarter-end pension selling of about $33 billion in equities and more than $5.3 billion in net CTA selling of Russell 2000 futures.
JPMorgan trading desk turns tactically bullish
JPMorgan’s institutional market intelligence trading desk shifted from “tactically cautious” to “tactically bullish.” That switch, the report said, gave the market some support. The desk laid out five reasons: macro fundamentals are beating expectations, consumers remain resilient, earnings expectations are low, bond yields are stabilizing, and technicals are improving.
On positioning, it still likes technology as the core long. But it no longer recommends shorting the Russell 2000 as a hedge. Instead, it prefers using derivatives to express that view.
Stock moves across the tape
Oracle rose 3.91% and at one point was up about 8%, helped by the report that OpenAI’s annualized revenue is approaching $70 billion and by Oracle’s launch of a fully managed OCI cloud storage service with NetApp. Cloud service providers moved higher too, with CoreWeave up 1.01% and Nebius up 2.36%.
Corning gained 4.70% after signing a multi-year fiber supply deal worth more than $3 billion with AT&T. Optical networking names also pushed higher: Lumentum rose 5.66%, AAOI gained 3.98%, Coherent added 3.46%, Ciena climbed more than 3%, and Astera Labs rose nearly 2%.
Meta advanced 3.24% after Citi reaffirmed its Buy rating and $800 target. The full opening of the Muse API and progress on the next flagship model, Watermelon, were cited as catalysts.
Apple fell 2.66%. Bank of America warned that AI agents could chip away at high-value use cases inside Apple’s services ecosystem. The report also said new CEO Ternus has begun a restructuring that cuts middle management and speeds product iteration. The Magnificent Seven, taken together, lagged the S&P 493: Amazon rose 0.21% after OpenAI announced cooperation with AWS; Tesla fell 1.29% after signing a $30 billion financing arrangement that includes a $20 billion delayed-draw loan; Alphabet Class A lost 0.53% as the White House AI agreement includes regular discussions with Google on AI safety standards; Nvidia fell 0.72%; Microsoft slipped 0.05%.
Micron Technology rose 1.05% ahead of earnings as investors kept betting on an AI memory supercycle. D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria reiterated a $2,000 price target, saying GPUs, CPUs, and memory are entering a “trinity” cycle. Among related names, SK Hynix rose 2.62%, SanDisk gained 0.98%, and Western Digital added 0.06%.
SpaceX rose 2.59%. The report said Starship successfully reached Earth orbit for the first time on Sept. 28, making it the company’s most ambitious mission yet. Anthropic also disclosed a compute agreement with SpaceX worth up to $84.5 billion, with plans to use Nvidia-based AI computing resources from SpaceX through 2029.
Bloom Energy jumped 10.80% after Jefferies lifted its price target to $264, saying the core thesis around AI data center power demand still holds even if project approvals remain uncertain.
Boeing gained 1.78% after beating Northrop Grumman for the Navy’s F/A-XX next-generation fighter contract, its second major win this year after the Air Force F-47 program. NASA is also planning another $359 million in funding and technical support to help Starliner return to the International Space Station as early as December in a cargo role.
What markets are watching next
Wednesday, Sept. 30
At 20:30, the U.S. will release August personal income, consumer spending, core PCE, and the final reading of second-quarter GDP. The report said core PCE is the inflation measure the Federal Reserve watches most closely. Expectations are around 0.3% month over month and about 3.3% year over year. A hotter number could reinforce the higher-for-longer rates trade and hit equity valuations. A softer one could push down the dollar and Treasury yields, helping technology stocks and gold.
At 22:30, the U.S. will publish EIA crude inventory data. After the announcement of a possible 40 million-barrel SPR loan, this print could steer short-term oil direction. An unexpected build could extend the slide in crude. A draw, though, could put Middle East risk premium back into prices.
Thursday, Oct. 1
Mainland China’s A-share market will be closed for the National Day holiday through Oct. 7, while Hong Kong stocks will be closed on Oct. 1. Stock Connect services are set to pause during the holiday and resume on Oct. 8. PANews said offshore markets will have less ability to absorb overseas headlines, and warned that thin liquidity could magnify moves when Hong Kong reopens on Oct. 2.
Japan’s JSR, Tokyo Ohka, and Shin-Etsu Chemical are reportedly planning a 15% global price increase for photoresists starting immediately, with bigger increases for high-end ArF and HBM immersion products. Power semiconductor makers in Taiwan are also said to be preparing a third round of price hikes, possibly 10% to 15% for non-contract products as early as October. The report warned against treating proposed prices as realized profit. Fair point.
At 4:30, Micron will hold its fiscal Q4 earnings call. Investors will be watching pricing, orders, and capital expenditure guidance for HBM, DRAM, and data center SSDs. UBS has already lifted its forecasts, but if guidance misses these elevated expectations, memory and AI hardware stocks could still get a sell-the-news reaction.
At 8:00, South Korea will release September trade data. Bloomberg Economics expects exports to rise 66.5% year over year, and the market will be watching whether strong chip export growth is still intact.
At 20:30, the U.S. will release initial jobless claims, Challenger layoff data, ISM manufacturing PMI, and construction spending. If labor and manufacturing numbers both come in strong, the higher-for-longer trade could gain more traction. If both weaken, focus may shift from inflation to growth risk. Simple as that.
SpaceX is also planning NASA’s Crew-13 mission, Google plans to launch a prototype satellite carrying its in-house TPU, and Tesla plans to unveil a new “flying car” Roadster. The report said investors should watch the Roadster production and delivery timeline, TPU validation in space, and whether the launch stays on schedule. It also said successful demonstrations do not mean near-term revenue shows up right away.
Friday, Oct. 2
At 20:30, the U.S. will release September nonfarm payrolls, the unemployment rate, and average hourly earnings. A Reuters survey expects job growth to slow to about 100,000 from 162,000 in August. Stronger-than-expected jobs and wage data could lift pricing for an October hike, along with Treasury yields and the dollar. A clear downside miss would force markets to separate easing inflation pressure from a sharper slowdown in growth.
Tokyo CPI and South Korea CPI are also due. Bloomberg Economics expects Tokyo core CPI to rise to 2.7% year over year in September. A hotter reading could raise expectations for Bank of Japan tightening and yen intervention.
Hong Kong stocks will reopen, but southbound and northbound trading will still be suspended. Markets will be watching how moves in overseas rates, oil, and U.S. equities all get reflected at once.
Sunday, Oct. 4
OPEC+ and seven oil-producing countries are scheduled to meet on oil policy.
Monday, Oct. 5
CME had planned to launch its first GPU compute futures on Oct. 5, 2026, tracking rental costs for H100 and B200 chips. But the Commodity Futures Trading Commission extended its review period by 45 days to Nov. 9, delaying the listing.
Intel is also set to raise PC CPU prices by about 10% again. The report said this would be the third straight round of increases since late 2025, following a roughly 10% increase in the first quarter of 2026 and another July increase on some consumer and server CPUs ranging from tens of dollars to more than $1,000.
Thursday, Oct. 8
The Federal Reserve will publish minutes from its monetary policy meeting. The U.S. will also release weekly initial jobless claims for the week of Oct. 3, and TSMC will report September revenue.