Oil knocks on $100 and Wall Street sells everything but the AI pipe: Intel +9%, Lumentum +11%, Dow −1.2% — Seoul buys the dip and the Kospi is back above 7,000
Wall Street’s first session after Labor Day was a sell-off with a very specific shape. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 628 points, or 1.2%, to 52,786.07; the S&P 500 lost 0.6% to 7,673.52 and the Nasdaq Composite 0.3% to 26,421.41. Only six of the Dow’s thirty members rose. Health care was the worst of the eleven sectors, down 2.5%, with Amgen −10.1% and Stryker −8.8%; Salesforce −3.9% was the second-largest drag on the blue chips. Oil did the rest: Brent rose through $98 during the session and is at $99.05 this morning, up 1.2% overnight and up for a fourth day, after the United States said it destroyed five Iranian tankers in response to missile attacks on a US warship, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had hit two US vessels, eight tankers and ten other ships in the Strait of Hormuz and fired twenty missiles at a US base in Jordan, and Houthi forces struck oil facilities in southern Saudi Arabia, including the 400,000-barrel-a-day Jazan refinery. The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.806%, its highest since October 2023, and CME FedWatch puts a quarter-point hike on September 16 at 60.4%.
Oil knocks on $100 and Wall Street sells everything but the AI pipe: Intel +9%, Lumentum +11%, Dow −1.2% — Seoul buys the dip and the Kospi is back above 7,000
1 Wall Street reopens and sells: Dow −1.2% to 52,786, S&P −0.6%, Nasdaq −0.3% — Amgen −10%, Stryker −9%, Salesforce −4%, only six Dow stocks up
2 The pipe rally: Lumentum +11.0%, Corning +7.6% on 80 million miles of Verizon fibre, Coherent +7.1%, Nokia +6.2%, Intel +9.1% on another CPU price rise, Qualcomm +3.2% on a $60 billion Amazon deal
4 Oil: Brent $99.05, up for a fourth day and within a dollar of $100 — US strikes five Iranian tankers, Iran says it hit two US vessels and eight tankers, Houthis strike Saudi refineries
5 Bonds: 10-year 4.81%, highest close since October 2023, 30-year 5.26%, hike odds 60% — China producer prices +3.8%, the most in months, PPI Thursday, CPI Friday
6 Asia buys the chips again: Kospi 7,038 (+1.2%), SK hynix +3.1%, Nikkei −0.3% with Advantest −3.3% and SoftBank +3.2% on a $10–20 billion bond plan, Lenovo recovers 5%
7 Our indices on Tuesday’s closes: Rubin +0.1% (US members +2.2%, Japan −4.1%, DC Power +5.1%, Wafer −5.0%), Agentic Winners −2.8%, HALO −0.5% on Amgen and Stryker, Compute Operators +3.3%
8 Metals: gold $4,430 after a second down day, copper at a record $14,728 a tonne on the LME, silver $67, Ivanhoe +12.8%, Freeport +5.3%
9 Bitcoin $78,956 holds above the $78,000 line, yen 153.4 at a seven-month high, won 1,336, dollar 98.7 — S&P futures +0.1%, Dow futures flat
10 Today’s close grades Zscaler (161.94 vs a 177.80 entry, ‘sold’ on current prices) and Samsara (40.15 vs 38.75, ‘paid’); Oracle Thursday after the close with three new price targets; Adobe, ECB and PPI Thursday, CPI Friday
Brent crude traded above $100 a barrel on Wednesday morning for the first time since July after the United States sank Iranian tankers and Iran said it hit ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Europe sold: Spain −2.2%, France −1.5% to −1.9%, Germany −1.4%, the Stoxx 600 −1.3% at midday. US futures were down 0.3% to 0.5% into the open with the 10-year at 4.8%, its highest since 2023. What held was the same thing that held on Tuesday: chips, and inside chips, memory. The Kospi closed above 7,000 for the first time since July 23, memory names rose pre-market, and our print record grades Zscaler and Samsara at tonight's close.