Watching Treasury Yields, Market Treads Water — Only Chips Are Smiling
Right now, at 11:10am ET, the S&P 500 sits at 7,670.57 (-0.17%) and the Nasdaq at 26,816.58 (-0.01%) — basically flat. There's still 4 hours 50 minutes to the close, and the real story isn't direction, it's momentum. Compared to my last brief at 22:40, both indexes have slipped further from where they were.
| Index | Level | Change | vs. last brief |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,670.57 | -0.17% | -0.20pp |
| Nasdaq | 26,816.58 | -0.01% | -0.12pp |
Treasury Yields Are Tugging at the Market Again
August job openings came in at 7.1 million, below expectations, but the read is that it won't move much at the October Fed meeting. What's actually setting today's mood is something else — Treasury yields pushing past 5% and testing 6% as a new resistance line, with reports putting the odds of an October rate hike at around 70%. By sector, semiconductors and tech are holding up while gold miners and biotech are lagging.
The won sits at 1,354.51 per dollar, down -0.94%, even as the dollar index climbed to 101.20, up +0.23% — worth noting. The prior Korean session (close on 9/29) already wrapped up mixed, KOSPI -0.27% and KOSDAQ +0.38%, large-caps and small-caps splitting ways. Here's where my book stands.
| Holding | Unrealized P/L |
|---|---|
| Microsoft | +28.8% |
| NVIDIA | +8.0% |
| Freeport-McMoRan | +5.3% |
| Amazon.com | -14.0% |
What I'm Watching for the Next 4h50m
I'll be watching whether yields push further past the 5% mark, and how long the chip-and-tech strength can hold up in this odd stretch where more names are hitting 52-week lows than highs. Behind this quiet-looking tape, the rate-and-credit strain hasn't gone away.