Thursday’s session ended the way most of September has felt: tired, anxious, and quietly defiant. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.3%, the S&P 500 finished down less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq Composite managed a gain of less than 0.1%, essentially flat, according to preliminary FactSet data reported by MarketWatch. The headline numbers hide the day’s real story, which was the Nasdaq’s intraday rescue, helped by Big Tech names finding their footing after a bruising morning.
The worry running through the tape was familiar: investors are growing convinced the Federal Reserve will embark on more interest-rate hikes as oil prices and bond yields press higher from already elevated levels, MarketWatch reported. The 10-year Treasury yield traded around 5.11%, its highest in 19 years, while crude held above $100 a barrel as U.S.-Iran tensions kept a geopolitical premium in the price. Those two forces (higher-for-longer rates and expensive energy) are the same pair that have been squeezing household budgets all summer, and today they squeezed the stock market in turn.
The morning belonged to the bears. Technology and semiconductor shares opened sharply lower, with Oracle plunging after a Bloomberg report that the company sent a force majeure notice to the developer of its New Mexico data-center campus, Project Jupiter. Oracle shares ended the day down 6.9% at $134.66, their lowest since early August, and are now off 31% year to date, according to Dow Jones Newswires via Morningstar. The notice seeks payment protection if the facility fails to come online in 2028 as planned. An Oracle spokesperson told Bloomberg that “Project Jupiter remains on our planned schedule” and that the company is “fully committed to New Mexico and confident in our path forward.” The contagion was limited but visible: Blue Owl Capital, the project’s developer, fell 4.22%, and Bloom Energy, which is involved in the site’s power plan, dropped 6.33%.
Yet the Nasdaq refused to stay down. By the final hour, the tech-heavy index had trimmed its losses to a barely noticeable level, Investor’s Business Daily noted, even as Federal Reserve officials called for possible rate hikes in October. Inside the Nasdaq-100, Meta Platforms and Airbnb each rallied more than 2%, while Arm and SanDisk sold off roughly 3% each in the morning trade. Among Dow components, Chevron advanced about 1% on firm crude, while Caterpillar and Amazon lost 1% to 2%.
Energy was the day’s clear winner. The Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF gained 1.05% as the U.S. Oil Fund rose 1.46%, standing alone as the bright spot while the VanEck Semiconductor ETF tumbled 2.16%, Micron fell 2.5%, and Intel lost 3.4% in a broad intraday selloff.
The pain was global. India’s BSE Sensex lost 1.56% in afternoon trade and the Nifty50 closed down 1.64% at 23,063.10, crushed by the same surging U.S. yields and crude above $102, plus a domestic regulatory proposal from India’s insurance regulator that sent Bajaj Finance down 5.8% and Axis Bank down 5.21%, according to AngelOne’s market wrap. Only three of the 50 Nifty constituents finished in the green.
After the closing bell, attention shifted to earnings. Costco Wholesale, which slid during the session ahead of its report, released fourth-quarter results after the close, with analysts expecting $6.54 in earnings per share against $5.87 a year earlier (MarketBeat; Motley Fool). Fourth-quarter net sales had already been reported at $93.9 billion, up 11.3% year over year, according to Zacks. Nike also reported after the close, with analysts estimating earnings of $0.45 per share.
The takeaway from today is one the whole month has been teaching: the market can absorb a lot of bad news as long as Big Tech keeps buying the dip, but every bounce starts from a lower floor. Yields near two-decade highs and oil above $100 are the twin headwinds nobody has solved. Tomorrow brings durable goods orders and the final September read on consumer sentiment, which will either confirm or complicate the Fed’s hawkish case.
