To The Moon

The indices: Dow up, Nasdaq flat, a split that maps onto earnings week The three indices diverged on Tuesday: the $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ rose 1.02 per cent to 52,495.88; the $S&P 500(.SPX)$ rose 0.28 per cent to 7,712.57; the $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ was nearly unchanged, closing down 0.02 per cent at 26,424.82. The 10-year Treasury yield settled at 5.12 per cent. The Dow–Nasdaq split tracks the shape of this week's reporting calendar: technology names started spreading risk before the numbers are in, some moving forward, some pulling back. Memory: the CXMT overhang still has not cleared

The market: Amazon led as QQQ rebounded faster than SPY $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ rose 1.21 per cent to US$718.36 on Monday, $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ gained 0.42 per cent to US$766.48, and the $S&P 500(.SPX)$ added 0.41 per cent to 7,690.73. Amazon rose 4.98 per cent, lifting technology and the data-centre supply chain and giving the Nasdaq-100 its best performance in almost a month. The advance went beyond one large-cap rebound. Money spread from Amazon into memory, semiconductors and networking equipment, showing that Friday's selling had cooled. The questions around rates and investment returns remain. Result

The market: QQQ and SPY fell as Warsh gave no answer on October rates $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ fell 2.50 per cent to US$709.80 on Friday and $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ fell 1.11 per cent to US$763.25. Headline CPI was 3.7 per cent from a year earlier in September, above the market's 3.6 per cent expectation and the prior 3.4 per cent reading. PPI reached 6.3 per cent, above the 5.5 per cent expected and the revised prior 5.6 per cent. Consecutive upside inflation surprises forced highly valued technology to absorb the rate repricing first. Fed chair Kevin Warsh did not prejudge the meeting on 27–28 October. He reiterated the commitment to price stability while describing AI

The market: hotter producer prices moved money out of technology and into value sectors $SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust(SPY)$ rose 0.28 per cent to US$771.79 on Thursday, while $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ fell 0.13 per cent to US$728.00. September PPI increased 1.3 per cent from the previous month, above the market's 0.6 per cent expectation and faster than August's 0.4 per cent rise. Wholesale inflation reached 6.3 per cent from a year earlier, with energy prices the main driver. Renewed upstream price pressure reduced expectations for rate cuts and highly valued technology shares. The broad market did not fall with technology because money moved towards financials, consumer companies an

The market: inflation returned as AI hardware faced both rate and earnings pressure The $S&P 500(.SPX)$ fell 1.11 per cent to 7,718.94 on Wednesday, while $Invesco QQQ(QQQ)$ lost 1.97 per cent to close at US$728.95. Headline CPI rose 3.7 per cent from a year earlier in September, above the market's 3.6 per cent expectation and August's 3.4 per cent reading. The return of inflation pushed rate expectations higher, and technology fell substantially more than the broader market. As rate expectations move higher, the present value of future earnings falls; the more a share price depends on growth further into the future, the greater the valuation pressure. AI hardware also f

The indices: barely moved, but chips and memory went in opposite directions The three indices were nearly flat on Tuesday: the $S&P 500(.SPX)$ fell 0.02 per cent to 7,805.45; the $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ fell 0.15 per cent to 27,204.38; and the $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ fell 0.35 per cent to 51,670.10. The 10-year Treasury yield eased from 5.24 per cent to 5.22 per cent. The compute chips that had been falling since last Thursday bounced: $NVIDIA(NVDA)$ rose 0.97 per cent to US$228.52 and AMD rose 1.90 per cent to US$605.53, with the specific AMD driver in the next sect

The indices: the Dow outran the Nasdaq for the third session in a row All three indices split again on Monday: the $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ rose 0.38 per cent to 51,850.55; the $S&P 500(.SPX)$ fell 0.06 per cent to 7,807.24, essentially flat; and the $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ fell 0.44 per cent to 27,245.90. The 10-year Treasury yield stayed at 5.24 per cent, unchanged from Friday. Monday was the third consecutive session in which the Dow outperformed the Nasdaq. Nvidia fell 1.29 per cent to US$226.32 and AMD fell 2.28 per cent to US$594.24, extending the declines that began last Thursday on the OpenAI revenue report. Memory st

The indices: the Dow led all three higher, with healthcare and real estate doing the work All three indices rose on Friday: the $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ gained 0.83 per cent to 51,654.95; the $S&P 500(.SPX)$ rose 0.59 per cent to 7,811.54; and the $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ added 0.64 per cent to 27,366.17. The 10-year Treasury yield nudged one basis point higher, from 5.23 per cent to 5.24 per cent. The session's leaders were real estate, up 1.85 per cent, and healthcare, up 1.48 per cent — not the technology and compute names that have been carrying recent moves. Thursday's OpenAI revenue worries dissipated, but what filled th

The indices: the selling stayed inside technology, so the Nasdaq fell while the Dow closed higher The three indices split on Thursday: the $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ fell 1.25 per cent to 27,193.34, the steepest of them; the $S&P 500(.SPX)$ fell 0.47 per cent to 7,765.36; and the $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ rose 0.10 per cent to 51,231.60. The 10-year Treasury yield came back from 5.28 per cent to 5.23 per cent on the same day. Rates fell and equities fell with them, which is not the chain of cause and effect of recent days: what was repriced was the assumption about demand along the AI chain, and the discount rate had nothing to d

The indices: all three fell back from record closes, and the Dow lost 0.66 per cent The three indices moved back from the previous day's record closes on Wednesday: the $Dow Jones(.DJI)$ Average fell 0.66 per cent to 51,179.90, the largest decline; the $S&P 500(.SPX)$ fell 0.22 per cent to 7,801.77; and the $NASDAQ(.IXIC)$ Composite fell 0.22 per cent to 27,538.69. The pressure came from the bond market: the 10-year Treasury yield reached 5.36 per cent at its intraday peak and closed at 5.28 per cent, while the 30-year touched 5.73 per cent and closed at 5.66 per cent. Minutes from the Federal Reserve's Septemb