Ahead of the US-China Summit, Chips Alone Kept Nasdaq Afloat

I opened the screen and pulled kind of an ambiguous face right away. Just after the open, at 9:40am ET, the S&P 500 sits at 7,752.00 (-0.16%) and the Nasdaq at 27,163.40 (+0.15%). The two split in opposite directions, but the real story is the gap versus last time. Compared with the 04:40 brief, the S&P slipped -0.34%p and the Nasdaq -0.43%p — whichever way an index was leaning, it lost steam.

A wait-and-see tape, chips barely carrying it

The reason was simple enough. A preview piece flagged a market bracing itself ahead of tomorrow's US-China summit, and the Nasdaq itself opened down -0.14% before chip and AI strength dragged it back up to today's +0.15%. Energy and financials stayed weak, though, so the S&P couldn't follow that bounce and sat at -0.16%. Last night (Korea's 9/23 close) the Kospi rose +0.90% and the Kosdaq +1.21%, a fourth straight up day riding a chip-led tape — but today's US session only picked up half of that tailwind, and only in the Nasdaq.

The currency board is split too. The won sits at 1,373.68 per dollar, down -0.81%, while the dollar index is actually up +0.21% at 100.43 — the dollar broadly firm while the won alone jumped, a divergence worth watching. Meanwhile, here's where my public paper holdings stand.

There's 6 hours 20 minutes left until close. I'll be watching how much longer this wait-and-see mood carries through as the summit approaches, and whether chip/AI strength can keep offsetting energy and financial weakness enough to hold the Nasdaq in the green. More than the index levels themselves, whether that gap between them narrows or widens is today's real thing to watch.