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Briefing.com Summary:
*Oil prices continue to slide, lending support to the equity futures trade.
*Yesterday's rally was robust at the index level, but not as robust below the surface for the S&P 500.
*Developments out of today's UN General Assembly will be a focal point.
The stock market had a robust start to the week, capitalizing on lower oil prices, lower Treasury yields, and hefty gains in the semiconductor industry and mega-cap stocks, particularly Meta Platforms (META). The Nasdaq Composite achieved a record closing high, and the S&P 500 was not far from one of its own.
One of the notes making the rounds today is that the S&P 500 gained 1.5% yesterday to move within 1.0% of a new 52-week high, yet more stocks in the index hit new lows (30) than new highs (7) along the way, something that hasn't happened since December 1999.
One takeaway is that the gains were not as broad-based as the final standing seemingly implied. Another takeaway is that December 1999 was only a short time before the dot-com bubble burst in March 2000. History may not repeat itself, but this is one of those stats that, if nothing else, gives market participants reason to hold back on some of their buying firepower.
The outsized moves in the semiconductor stocks have also caused some consternation rooted in the idea that there is too much complacency driving their gains. In other words, there is concern that they are at risk of a setback.
Market participants are sitting fairly tight to see how the tape plays out as the UN General Assembly discusses diplomatic roadmaps, the U.S. and Iran trade both peace-minded and military-minded overtures, and President Trump and President Xi ready for their September 24 meeting.
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are up five points and are trading 0.1% above fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are down 27 points and are trading fractionally below fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 204 points and are trading 0.5% above fair value.
WTI crude futures, which topped $97.00/bbl earlier this morning, have rolled over and are at $93.60/bbl now, down 2.3%, having been aided by reports that Saudi Arabia has started operations for its East-West pipeline again, albeit at a slower rate, and Iran's reported pronouncement that it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the U.S. backs off its military pressure.
Treasury yields, for the most part, are taking a cue from the directional cadence of oil prices. The 2-yr note yield is down one basis point to 4.74% ahead of today's $69 billion 2-yr note auction at 1:00 p.m. ET, and the 10-yr note yield is down one basis point to 4.95%.
There isn't any corporate news moving the market needle, although Alibaba (BABA) is stirring the AI trading pot with the unveiling of a full-stack AI roadmap that features a new Qwen model, proprietary chips, agentic cloud infrastructure, and mobile AI agents.
