Update: US Equity Indexes Rise as Mega-Cap Technology Advances Amid Broad-Based Market Rally
04:36 PM EDT, 10/09/2026 (MT Newswires) -- (Updates with index/price moves, macroeconomic data, and economist comments from the first paragraph.) US equity indexes rose amid a broad-based rally and strong gains in mega-cap technology names, as investors seemingly whistled past a bear steepening in the yield curve. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.6% to 27,366.17, the S&P 500 advanced 0.6% to 7,811.54, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average marched 0.8% higher to 51,654.95 on Friday. All but two sectors, energy and communication services, rose. Real estate, consumer discretionary, and healthcare led the gainers at the close. Among stocks with market capitalization exceeding $200 billion, as many as seven of the top 10 were technology companies, according to data compiled by Finviz. Alibaba (BABA) led the gainers in this mega-cap category, up 5.4%. The University of Michigan's preliminary consumer sentiment index declined to 46.3 in October from 48.1 in September, versus the 47.6 expected in a Bloomberg-compiled survey. This month's print is the second-worst on record after the 44.8 reported in May, according to a Jefferies note. Respondents pegged one-year inflation expectations at 4.7%, up from 4.6%, while the five-year figure increased to 3.5% from 3.4%. The path forward for inflation expectations will depend on oil and gasoline prices, Thomas Simons, Jefferies Chief US Economist, said in the note. "There is a good deal of evidence that suggests that there is a good amount of oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz out to the rest of the world, but the vulnerability of thin stocks of reserves in many places, seasonal demand, increased shipping costs, and limited bandwidth for refining are going to keep the price that consumers are most focused on, gasoline, elevated for some time to come," Simons said. While the probability of the Federal Reserve leaving its target rate unchanged in October was 81% late Friday, the market sees a 71% likelihood of a 25-basis-point increase in December and assigns a 45% probability of
MT newswire•2026-10-09 20:36
