AI Stocks Close
🔔 AI Stocks Close — Friday, October 2, 2026 at 2:15 PM
Closes: SPX 7,722.72 (+0.73%) · Nasdaq 27,190.86 (+1.19%, record close) · DJI 51,176.96 (+0.49%)
Day narrative: A September payrolls print of just 29,000 jobs — against ~90,000 expected, with unemployment up to 4.2% — knocked October rate-hike odds from 64% last week down to roughly 16–21%, and growth money came charging back in. Tech and semis did the heavy lifting while the Nasdaq punched to a fresh record; the Dow and S&P still finished the week lower.
Sectors: Best Technology / Industrials (~+1.5%) · Worst Energy (~-1%), with financials also lagging
Movers:
• TSLA +5.6% — Q3 deliveries of 486,532 beat the ~462k consensus by about 25k, even though that's down 2.1% year over year
• ARM +8.0% — biggest gain in the chip complex as AI infrastructure demand bid up the whole group
• ORCL +4.1% — reported multi-billion-dollar, five-year cloud compute lease with Tencent plus sustained AI backlog chatter
• NVDA +2.0% — intraday record $237.88, market cap brushing $5.72T
• SYNA +13.8% — ON Semiconductor flipped its takeout from all-stock to a firm all-cash $123/share
• NKE -4.8% — weak fiscal Q1 revenue and a grim full-year outlook
After-hours / Earnings:
• Quiet tape — no material AI-complex prints after the bell. Anthropic remains the live IPO watch item: reports point to formal marketing as soon as the week of Nov 9, targeting a ~$2T valuation. OpenAI, meanwhile, is said to be raising $30B+ at ~$1.4T as bridge financing instead of listing this year.
Watchlist:
• MU $1,073.98 (-2.1%) — giving back after the blowout FQ4
• NVDA $235.03 (+2.0%)
• MSFT $512.80 (-0.02%)
• GOOGL $338.24 (-1.7%)
• META $725.93 (+0.1%)
• AMZN $248.23 (-0.4%)
• AAPL $330.32 (-0.8%)
• AMD $633.91 (+3.0%)
• TSLA $373.76 (+5.6%)
• PLTR $190.04 (+1.6%)
• ARM $314.28 (+8.0%)
• SMCI $43.33 (+3.4%)
• ORCL (+4.1% day; exact close unconfirmed)
• SOUN $6.03
• IONQ ~$44.98 (+5.7%)
• BBAI $2.71
• AVGO $353.67 (+3.0%)
• CRM ~$234.58
• ADBE ~$241
• IBM $222.63 (-1.3%)
• SNOW $341.81 (+0.7%)
• MDB ~$351.73
• NET ~$347.62
• CRWD ~$263.40
• TSM $472.92
• ASML ~$1,805 (-0.2%)
Macro:
• September payrolls +29,000 vs ~90,000 expected; unemployment 4.2%; average hourly earnings +0.1% m/m, +3.0% y/y — still trailing 3.4% inflation
• 10-year Treasury ~5.25–5.28%, 30-year ~5.63%; yields dipped on the report then clawed most of it back
• VIX hovering near 16 · Gold -0.9% to ~$4,141 · Brent ~$102 after the G7 announced a coordinated 100-million-barrel release over four months
• Bitcoin topped $85,000 as hike odds faded · Dollar index pressing 102, highest since April 2025
• Paramount–Warner Bros. merger closed; combined company rebranded Skydance
Tomorrow: Weekend — markets closed. Monday brings September ISM Services (est. 55.1 vs 55.4) and Fed's Goolsbee. Wednesday's September FOMC minutes are the week's main event, with Chair Warsh having called inflation too high and 12 of 18 dots still pointing to another hike this year. Earnings are thin: STZ and RPM Tuesday, LEVI and APLD Wednesday, PEP Thursday, DAL Friday. CPI isn't until October 14.