US stocks closed lower in choppy trade on Tuesday, September 29 (US Eastern Time), as US Treasury yields climbed back to multi-year highs. Anthropic officially filed its prospectus, planning an IPO at a valuation exceeding $2 trillion; OpenAI launched the GPT-6.1 Sol model, whose performance approaches Astra but with cheaper standard tokens. Saudi Arabia's increased supply through key pipelines outweighed market concerns over the US-Iran standoff, pushing oil prices lower.
All three major US stock indices closed slightly lower. The Dow fell 0.26% to 51,349.92 points, the S&P 500 dropped 0.17% to 7,670.84 points, and the Nasdaq declined 0.09% to 26,797.54 points. The 30-year US Treasury yield broke above 5.6%, hitting its highest level since June 2002, while the benchmark 10-year yield briefly surpassed 5.29% during intraday trading. Economic data released on Tuesday painted a dim outlook for the US economy ahead of Friday's nonfarm payrolls report. Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since 2014. In the labor market, August job openings dropped to 7.097 million, below economists' expectations of 7.228 million and below the previous month's revised figure of 7.335 million. Federal Reserve official Williams said there is no need to rush after September's rate hike, and if the economy meets expectations, another rate increase may come this year. The Fed will decide its next rate policy based on more data, and bringing inflation back to the 2% target is crucial. After his remarks, traders reduced bets on an October Fed rate hike, with market expectations now at around 50%, down from about 70% previously. Fed Governor Barr said he expects further rate hikes will be needed to bring down inflation. Risks to inflation outweigh risks to the labor market. Compared with 2% growth in the first half, GDP growth in the second half is expected to "pick up slightly."
OpenAI launched the GPT-6.1 Sol model. Most semiconductor stocks closed higher, with ARM up 3.65%, ASML up 3.56%, Broadcom up 1.58%, TSMC up 0.91%, AMD down 0.05%, Intel down 0.09%, and Qualcomm down 1.80%. Anthropic officially filed its prospectus, planning an IPO at a valuation exceeding $2 trillion, which if completed would be the largest IPO in history. The prospectus shows Anthropic's 2025 revenue grew 12-fold year-over-year to nearly $4.6 billion, while operating losses widened to $8.06 billion over the same period, with net losses including certain liability write-downs approaching $42 billion. Anthropic plans to invest $518 billion in cloud computing, computing power, and infrastructure over the coming years. The prospectus devotes 80 pages to discussing AI threats, warning that advanced AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks" to humanity. OpenAI launched the GPT-6.1 Sol model, whose performance approaches Astra but at only one-fifth the standard token price of Astra. OpenAI said it will release an ultra-fast version of GPT-6.1 Sol in the coming days. OpenAI also released a persistent AI agent called Dots, which can proactively handle work tasks on behalf of users, along with a premium subscription tier priced at $500 per month. Most large technology stocks closed lower, with Facebook up 3.24%, Amazon up 0.21%, Microsoft down 0.05%, Google down 0.53%, Nvidia down 0.72%, Tesla down 1.29%, and Apple down 2.66%. Tesla's supervised Full Self-Driving has been approved in 8 EU countries, marking progress in deploying the technology.
Oil prices fell as market concerns eased. Oil declined as Saudi Arabia's increased crude supply through key pipelines outweighed market concerns over the US-Iran standoff. Reuters cited Kpler data showing that major Middle Eastern oil producers' crude exports in September are expected to rebound to 12.8 million barrels per day, the highest level since the US-Iran conflict, with increased exports from Saudi Arabia and the UAE being the main drivers of this supply recovery. Kpler data shows that last week, 19 very large crude carriers loaded with approximately 2 million barrels of Saudi crude departed the Strait of Hormuz, indicating that Saudi Arabia is restoring alternative transportation capacity through the Red Sea while increasing exports through the Gulf. Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth Group, said increased oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, combined with the restart of Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, has brought some supply relief to the market. At the close, November-delivery light crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $3.22 to $89.38 per barrel, a decline of 3.48%; November-delivery London Brent crude futures fell $2.69 to $102.59 per barrel, a decline of 2.56%. Energy stocks closed broadly lower, with ConocoPhillips down 0.48%, ExxonMobil down 0.69%, Chevron down 0.95%, Occidental Petroleum down 2.07%, and Schlumberger down 3.13%.
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