S&P 500 Falls as Chip Rout Offsets US-Iran Hopes: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) — A selloff in chipmakers weighed on stocks, offsetting a slump in oil prices driven by hopes for diplomatic efforts to end the war in Iran.
West Texas Intermediate settled near $96.50 a barrel. While most S&P 500 firms rose, the index fell amid technology weakness. The Nasdaq 100 sank 10% from its peak, entering a technical correction. In late hours, Apple Inc. posted decelerating sales growth, with China revenue missing estimates. Long-term Treasuries outperformed.
The plunge in energy costs reverberated across markets a day before Americans cast ballots in the midterm elections.
Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian said his government has been granted more authority by the country’s supreme leader to pursue peace talks, as President Donald Trump hinted at progress in negotiations.
“They want to make a deal, and that could happen,” he told reporters in Washington. Trump added that oil prices had fallen because “it looks like that’s coming together very nicely” and “people found out about it.”
Moments later, he mouthed “No,” when a reporter shouted a question about whether he would resume military strikes on Iran after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“It’s going to be an extremely interesting week in the markets,” said Matt Maley at Miller Tabak. “We’ll have political issues to decipher as well as geopolitical ones.”
Meantime, growing doubts about AI investment returns will likely matter much more than historical patterns in determining the market’s direction going forward, he noted.
For almost three months, big tech companies didn’t borrow in the US bond market. Now they’re flooding in again.
Oracle Corp. is selling $10 billion of bonds on Monday alongside an equal amount of equity, while Meta Platforms Inc. is eyeing at least $20 billion from a potential sale in multiple currencies. On Thursday, Microsoft Corp. sold $25 billion of bonds, its first US offering since 2017. The deluge is coming in other currencies too. Alphabet Inc. sold debt in the Europe bond market on Monday for the second time this year.
Corporate Highlights:
Anthropic PBC disclosed a twelve-fold increase in quarterly revenue while revealing that it intends to spend more than $895 billion in the years ahead, as the AI lab courts investors for a potentially-record-breaking IPO. Marvell Technology Inc. agreed to buy Lumentum Holdings Inc. at an enterprise value of $115 billion, clinching one of the largest technology deals in history in a push to capitalize on runaway data center spending. Palantir Technologies Inc. gave a forecast for full-year revenue that beat Wall Street’s expectations, buoyed by surging demand for the company’s data analytics tools. Snap Inc. has settled a lawsuit filed by two teenagers who say years of compulsive scrolling and posting on the company’s photo-sharing app contributed to their mental health struggles. Marriott International Inc. reported third-quarter earnings that beat expectations, as bookings surged across the company’s US hotels. What Bloomberg strategists say…
“The oil selloff reinforces the distinction traders now need to make: Physical tightness remains real, but the largest swings in crude are increasingly being driven by changes in the geopolitical premium.”
—Michael Ball, Macro Strategist, Markets Live. For the full analysis, click here.
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 fell 0.5% as of 4 p.m. New York time The Nasdaq 100 fell 1.4% The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% The MSCI World Index fell 0.4% Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.2% The euro rose 0.3% to $1.1193 The British pound rose 0.1% to $1.3411 The Japanese yen fell 0.2% to 157.93 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin fell 1.5% to $76,649.98 Ether fell 0.7% to $2,246.06 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined two basis points to 4.90% Germany’s 10-year yield declined three basis points to 3.29% Britain’s 10-year yield declined nine basis points to 5.19% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude fell 8% to $95.79 a barrel Spot gold rose 1.9% to $3,946.57 an ounce ©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
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