What Happened Yesterday
Tuesday, October 6. Records on the front page, utilities in the starring role, small caps stuck in the parking lot.
Close | Move | Mood | |
|---|---|---|---|
S&P 500 (SPY) | 779.09 | +0.55% | New record, new number |
Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) | 759.66 | +0.46% | Still dancing |
Dow (DIA) | 514.56 | +0.48% | Showed up, didn't dance |
Russell 2000 (IWM) | 281.34 | -0.72% | Uninvited again |
VIX | 15.01 | -3.29% | Napping |
2-Year Treasury | 4.79% | -5 bp | Exhaled |
10-Year Treasury | 5.27% | -4 bp | Took a breather |
30-Year Treasury | 5.64% | -2 bp | Barely blinked |
Gold (GLD) | 382.27 | +0.72% | Quietly smug |
Oil (USO) | 144.91 | +0.64% | Bounced off the mat |
Bitcoin | $85,558 | -0.27% | Shrugging |
The S&P 500 index rose 44.98 points to a record 7,818.93, beating its August 13 close of 7,798.99. The Nasdaq Composite added 122.48 to a second straight record at 27,599.79. The Dow gained 253.38 to 51,521.28. Utilities (+2.98%) led every sector by a mile; health care (-0.17%) was the only one in the red.
7,800 and Change Brought
to You by Seven Stocks
The S&P 500 closed above 7,800 for the first time, at 7,818.93. It also touched 7,844.52 during the day, a fresh intraday high. For nearly two months, 7,800 was the ceiling. Now it's the floor everybody is pretending is solid.
This record has a guest list. The Magnificent Seven make up more than 34% of the S&P 500's total value, per CNBC, which is a polite way of saying a third of your "diversified" index fund is seven tech companies in a trench coat. The Russell 2000, home of the small companies that actually borrow at bank rates, fell 0.72%.
The chip crowd did the heavy lifting. Marvell jumped 5.81% to $287.01, and was up as much as 11% at one point, after raising its 2028 revenue forecast to about $20 billion from $18 billion, per Reuters. Broadcom added 3.67%. AMD gained 2.80%. Micron, apparently not on the list, slipped 1.73%.
The $1,000 test: $1,000 in the S&P 500 index on January 1 is about $1,142 now.
Here's the Thing: a record is a record, and we'll take it. But when the whole building is held up by seven pillars, you don't need all seven to crack. You just need one to have a bad earnings call.
Two Constellations
One Star
Constellation Energy soared 12.25% to $300.40, one of the two best performers in the S&P 500, after signing a 20-year deal to sell Google power from 890 megawatts of new nuclear capacity. The trick: "uprates," which means squeezing more electricity out of 11 reactors that already exist. Think bigger engine, same car. Constellation is putting $4.3 billion into it, and the two also signed a separate 15-year supply deal for another 2,700 megawatts, per Seeking Alpha.
The whole power aisle caught fire. Talen Energy rose 12.43%, Vistra 10.77%, NRG 7.02%. The utilities sector, usually the place you park money to die of boredom, jumped 2.98% and led the market. AI data centers eat electricity like teenagers eat groceries, and every power plant with a pulse just became a growth stock.
Then there's the other Constellation. Constellation Brands, the Modelo and Corona folks, beat on the quarter after the close: $3.74 a share against $3.61 expected, revenue $2.63 billion against $2.54 billion, per Investing.com. Then it kept its full-year profit forecast at $11.20 to $11.90, and the midpoint sits under the $11.72 Wall Street wanted. It also guided sales growth for the year at somewhere between minus 1% and plus 1%. That's not a forecast. That's a shrug with a spreadsheet. Shares fell about 2.7% after hours, which more than erased a 2.08% gain from the regular session.
Same first name, opposite day. One Constellation sells electrons to the richest companies on Earth. The other sells beer to people who just checked their gas bill. The market told you exactly which customer it trusts right now.
Bonds Took a Breather
The Auction Didn't Bite.
Remember yesterday's "one thing that could ruin everyone's day"? The $58 billion 3-year Treasury auction sold at 4.932%. Reports disagree on whether buyers were eager or just present. The good news: it didn't ruin anyone's day.
Yields fell across the board instead. The 10-year closed at 5.27%, down 4 basis points from Monday's highest close since 2002. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percent, so this is the bond market loosening its tie one notch, not taking it off. The 2-year fell 5 basis points to 4.79%.
One dent in the mood: the trade deficit widened to $105.6 billion in August, per the Census Bureau and BEA, wider than the $102 billion forecast. We bought $420.8 billion of stuff from abroad and sold $315.2 billion back. The country is shopping like it got a raise.
Also closed Tuesday: Paramount Skydance finished buying Warner Bros. Discovery. The combined company is now just Skydance, which owns HBO, CNN, CBS, and a lot of debt. Your streaming bill has a new landlord.
Bonds relaxing for one day is like your landlord not raising the rent this month. Nice. Not a lease.
What to Watch Today
Wednesday, October 7 (all times CT). Futures were drifting slightly lower early, per Investing.com, and yields were creeping back up overnight.
7:00 AM: Constellation Brands earnings call. Expect a lot of questions about why beer drinkers are drinking less beer.
9:30 AM: weekly crude inventories (EIA). Oil's been near $100 a barrel on Brent, so this one matters more than it usually does.
10:00 AM: consumer inflation expectations (New York Fed). Forecast 3.7% for a year out, from 3.6%. If regular people expect prices to keep rising, the Fed takes that personally.
Noon: 10-year Treasury auction. The big sibling of Tuesday's 3-year, and the one mortgage rates follow.
1:00 PM: minutes from the Fed's September 15-16 meeting, when it raised rates for the first time since 2023. That vote was 12-0, and 12 of 18 officials penciled in one more hike this year.
After the close: Levi Strauss (expected about 36 cents a share) and Applied Digital, which builds AI data centers and is expected to lose about 25 cents a share. Spending money to make money, allegedly.
Thursday: PepsiCo before the bell, and Fed Governor Christopher Waller speaks in Istanbul at 3:30 AM CT.
Rate odds: Polymarket puts an October 28 hike at about 16.5%, and no change at 82.5%. In late September, CME FedWatch had it around 70%. Funny what one bad jobs report does.
The one thing that could ruin everyone's day
The noon-to-1 PM double feature. A soft 10-year auction, followed an hour later by minutes showing a Fed itching to hike again, will hit stocks with a one-two that seven tech companies may not be able to absorb. The market is pricing a Fed that sits out October. The minutes will tell us whether the Fed agreed.
Record highs, nuclear power and beer. Wednesday has a tough act to follow.
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