What Happened Yesterday
Thursday, October 15, 2026
The 30-second version: chip stocks started the day in free fall, then Nvidia's CEO vouched for one of his biggest customers, and most of the damage got undone. Interest rates on government bonds dropped, which helped the "boring" parts of the market. If your 401(k) is a plain index fund, it ended the day a little ahead.
Market | Close | Move | Mood |
|---|---|---|---|
S&P 500 | 7,744.06 | +0.33% | Relieved |
Nasdaq Composite | 26,713.03 | +0.08% | Survived its own morning |
Dow Jones | 52,177.69 | +1.08% (+556 pts) | Smug |
SOX (chip index) | 11,581.21 | -0.88% | Bruised, 7th straight loss |
VIX (fear gauge) | 16.46 | -2.4% | Breathing into a paper bag |
Small caps (fund, IWM) | +1.37% | Perky | |
Gold (fund, GLD) | +1.79% | Still the bunker | |
Oil (fund, USO) | +2.44% | Annoying | |
10-year Treasury yield | 5.07% | down from 5.19% | Exhaling |
Bitcoin | ~$82,140 | +0.71% | Present |
For the fund rows, watch the move, not the price. The fund's price is just the cost of one share of the fund.
The $1,000 test: $1,000 in the S&P 500 at Wednesday's close was worth about $1,003 on Thursday. Same $1,000 in the Dow: about $1,011.
The chip stocks fell down the stairs
then claimed they meant to do that
The SOX is a basket of 30 big chip stocks. At Thursday's open, it was down about 3.5%, and at its worst, about 4.4%. Asia had already set the mood: South Korea's main index closed down 7.6% overnight, which in a normal week would be the whole newsletter.
Then the floor caught everyone. Micron, which makes memory chips, was down 6% at its low and closed up 1.9%. AMD was down 7% at its low and closed down just 1.5%. NVIDIA sank as much as 3.8% and finished down 1.8%.
The chip index still lost 0.9%. That is seven straight losing days, and it is now down about 12% since October 6. A "good day" for chips this week means only losing a little.
This was a fire drill, not a fire being put out. Investors ran for the exits, found out the building was still standing, and wandered back in for snacks. The worry that started this (AI companies borrowing huge sums at rising rates) was not solved on Thursday. It got a pep talk.
Jensen Huang co-signed the loan
The pep talk came from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. CoreWeave rents out computing power for AI and pays for its data centers mostly with borrowed money. It fell more than 15% on Wednesday as its bonds slid toward "this might not get paid back" territory.
Thursday morning was worse. Per Bloomberg, the price of insurance against CoreWeave not paying its debts hit a record, with traders pricing better than a 60% chance of a default within five years. The stock fell as much as 9.5% early.
Then Huang, whose company supplies CoreWeave and owns a piece of it, told Bloomberg: "CoreWeave's strength is improving every day. I'm optimistic. Their cost of capital is actually decreasing." CoreWeave closed up 5.9%. Deutsche Bank called the selloff a buying opportunity, because of course it did.
This is your buddy co-signing your car loan while also being the dealership that sold you the car. It is a real vote of confidence. It is also a guy vouching for his own customer. The default insurance did not suddenly get cheap because a supplier said nice things. Watch the bonds, not the speech.
Bonds took a breather
And the boring stocks threw a party
Here's the odd part. Thursday morning's wholesale price report was hot: the prices businesses pay rose 1.3% in a single month. Normally that pushes interest rates up. Instead, the 10-year Treasury yield, which steers mortgage and car-loan rates, fell from 5.19% to 5.07%.
Lower rates are a gift to companies that live on borrowed money and regular customers. So the Dow, which is heavy on old-economy names, jumped 556 points. Small companies, which borrow more and feel rates first, rose 1.4%. Bets on another Fed rate hike this month faded. Per Investing.com, markets now lean toward a pause on October 28 and a possible hike in December.
The market spent all week acting like AI was the only thing it owned. Thursday, it remembered it also owns banks, factories, and companies that sell paper towels. When the AI kids get sent to the principal's office, the quiet kids get to run the class for a day. Whether that lasts depends on the bond market, which has the attention span of a toddler on espresso.
Quick hits
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh spoke in Bangkok Thursday night (our time) and called AI "probably the most consequential change to the U.S. and the global economy in my lifetime." He also said he doesn't "believe in saying now" what he might do at the Fed's remaining meetings this year. In plain English: big fan of the robots, zero hints on your mortgage rate.
Tesla unveiled a new Roadster Thursday evening that jumped a ramp, flipped, and landed using thrusters borrowed from SpaceX. Production starts in 2028, per Elon Musk. The stock fell 1.3% during the day and rose about 3% after hours. A flying car that ships in two years: the most Tesla sentence ever written.
Gold rose 1.8% (fund), and oil rose 2.4% (fund) on Thursday. The International Energy Agency says its members agreed to release roughly the last 100 million barrels left from their March emergency pledge. Brent crude, the global benchmark, is still around $105 a barrel, versus about $72 before the Iran war started in late February.
What to Watch Today
Friday, October 16. Times are Central.
Time (CT) | What | Why you care |
|---|---|---|
Before the open | Earnings from Truist, Regions, Citizens, M&T, and Travelers | Regional banks see the loan troubles before the rest of us. Travelers is an insurer, so it sees the storm and fender-bender bills. |
7:30 AM | Import prices for September | What we pay for stuff from overseas. Rose 0.7% last month. Another hot number feeds the inflation worry. |
8:15 AM | Industrial production for September | Are factories, mines, and utilities making more stuff? It was flat last month. |
1:00 PM | Federal budget for September | How much more did the government spend than it took in? Spoiler: more. |
All day | Monthly options expiration | A big batch of bets on where stocks will land expires today. That can make prices jumpy for no deep reason. |
Overnight, stock futures (bets on where the indexes will open) were up about 0.1% early Friday. Asian markets bounced after Thursday's beating. Indonesia was the exception: its main index fell more than 10% after index provider MSCI warned it may stop calling Indonesia an "emerging market," which would push some big global funds to sell. Bloomberg also reports Taiwan is weighing tighter rules on selling AI chips to China.
The one thing that could ruin everyone's day: CoreWeave gave back some of Thursday's bounce before the open, per Bloomberg. If the "AI borrowing scare" comes back and bond yields start climbing again at the same time, Thursday's comeback becomes a one-day rental. Watch the 10-year yield. If it heads back above 5.2%, the group hug is over.
Mic drop: Thursday's market in one sentence: the guy selling the shovels told everyone the hole is fine.
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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. We are a newsletter with opinions and a spreadsheet. Do your own homework, and maybe don't let a CEO pick your stocks for you.