Closing Recap

Thursday, October 09, 2025

U.S. stocks were steadily lower most of the afternoon with nearly all eleven S&P sectors finishing down on the day, led by biggest declines in Industrials (XLI), Materials (XLB) and Energy (XLE falling over 1.3% after stocks closed at record highs the day prior, though tech stocks bounced in the final hour of the day, limiting the Nasdaq losses again. Wall Street’s main indexes still finished lower after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell offered no fresh policy signals, leaving investors to rely on older data to shape sentiment. While markets have priced in aggressive interest rate cuts on hopes that the Fed will prioritize labor market support, minutes from the central bank’s September meeting released on Wednesday showed lingering inflation concerns. Separately, commentary from a few Fed officials today (Barr) was also a tad “hawkish” (more below). Day 9 of the U.S. government shutdown was today as the U.S. Senate rejects Republican government funding bill today with no clear path to ending shutdown (and prediction markets still see a more than 20-day lockdown).

Among Fed speakers today, Michael Barr among most interesting: said uncertainty about both inflation/jobs warrants a cautious approach to any further interest rate cut. Fed’s inflation goal faces significant risks, but also some factors that might mitigate those risks. Current outlook poses challenges for judging stance of monetary policy and deciding the right path forward. Expect Core PCE to exceed 3% by year-end. Fed’s inflation goal faces significant risks, but also some factors that might mitigate those risks. Barr said he doesn’t think we are forecasting a generalized spillover of tariffs into services inflation and notes some components of services inflation stem from higher stock prices Later the Fed’s Kashkari said simply on Barr’s comments, “I basically agree with everything you noted.”

Stats of the day: markets remain complacent with gains as 1) @ RyanDetrick tweets: “32 trading days in a row without a 1% move for the S&P 500, longest such streak since late 2019.” 2) @ RyanDetrick also tweets: “The S&P 500 is up more than 35% the past six months, for one of the best six-month rallies in history. The five other times this happened (since 1950) saw stocks higher a year later each time.” 3) According to a Reuters analysis of Trade Alert data, For individual stocks, trading in call options, typically bought to express a bullish view, exceeds volume in puts, options that express bearish views, by the largest margin in about four years.

In Weekly Sentiment readings: 1) This week’s NAAIM Exposure Index rose to 84.57 from last week’s 80.66 – recent hi of 98.15 from 8/21 – 2025 hi of 99.30 from 7/3 – 2025 trough from 4-16 of 35.16 – Last Quarter Average (Q3) of 86.63; 2) The bull-bear spread in the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) weekly survey was +10.3 vs ++3.7 last week. Bulls rise to 45.9%, from 42.9%, Neutrals rise to 18.5% from 17.9%, Bears drop to 35.6% from 39.2%.

• Nymex natural gas is down 0.6% at $3.313/mmBtu after a weekly inventory build lands at the high end of expectations, rising by 80 billion cubic feet last week to 3,641 Bcf and was 157 Bcf above the five-year average for the time of year, the EIA reports. The injection was larger than the average 75 Bcf estimate.
• Gold prices eased from record highs on Wednesday before selling accelerated midday, as some investors booked profits, with December gold tumbling -$97.90, or 2.4% to end the day at $3,972.60 an ounce (and off earlier highs $4.077.90). A strong recent recover in the US dollar (DXY), rising +0.5% to 99.40 following a drop in the euro this week on France political concerns and a change in leadership in Japan this week weighing on the yen, also led to the midday reversal in gold prices off its highs and falling as much as +2%. Silver, spurred by momentum in the gold market, strong investment demand and an ongoing supply deficit, breached the key psychological barrier of $50 per ounce for the first time.

• U.S. Treasury yields were higher on Thursday afternoon after an auction of long-dated bonds pointed to middling demand amid a continuing shutdown of the federal government that has blocked the release of official economic indicators. The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note was last up 1.7 basis points to 4.148% and the yield on the 30-year bond rose 0.8 basis points to 4.732%.

• In Beverages: PEP results beat as Q3 core EPS $2.29 vs est. $2.26; Q3 organic revs +1.3%; Q3 net revs rose 2.7% y/y to $23.94B vs est. $23.83B; affirms 2025 financial guidance; now sees FX translation headwind of about 0.5 pct points to hit FY reported net rev, core EPS growth.
• In Consumer Products: HELE shares declined after Q2 results topped expectations but provided an annual profit forecast largely below expectations as sees Fy26 EPS $3.75-$4.25 below consensus expectations of $4.58 and said profit margins were hurt by about 200 bps as higher tariffs weigh on cost of goods sold.

• In Home Improvement Retail: TSCO was upgraded to Buy, raise PT to $62 at Citigroup as sees building comp store sales momentum and the model returning to normalized SSS/EPS growth in 2026 and said the recent pullback presents an attractive entry point.

• In Casinos & Gaming: RSI was added to best ideas list at Benchmark saying despite strong underlying trends, the stock has corrected more than 16% amid investor anxiety surrounding the expansion of federally regulated prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket. Meanwhile, RSI enters Q3 with accelerating fundamentals and one of the cleanest growth and margin expansion stories in online gaming. After 2 weeks of declines on prediction market competition fears, DKNG was upgraded from Hold to Buy at Berenberg saying while numbers have been adjusted downwards due to sports results, the company has continued to deliver solid levels of growth.

• In Solar: the group was strong, with CSIQ among leaders after Wells Fargo earlier noted that courts granted a temporary stay on collecting retroactive duties for U.S. solar imports, pausing liquidation of potentially liable entries (a win for CSIQ as without the stay, firms faced major financial burdens). Also, strength in shares of ARRY, SEDG, EHPH among others. Barclays previews a few names ahead of earnings saying ENPH Q4 guide could come in ahead of Street, but 2026 outlook will hinge on success of the prepaid lease structure. However, a large safe harbor tied to this structure could inflate 2026 numbers. SEDG numbers likely have a tilt towards upward revisions, especially if it can take back share from TSLA.

• In FinTech: KLAR entered into a strategic Ai partnership with Google Cloud to bring more creative and engaging shopping experiences to millions of Klarna users worldwide; FOUR shares slipped after headlines CEO Isaacman noted to talk with Trump over top NASA job
• In Educations: Phoenix Education Partners (PXED) shares jumped following its New York Stock Exchange debut on Thursday, valuing the University of Phoenix owner at $1.35 billion, as its 4.25M share IPO opened at $38, compared with the issue price of $32.
• Insurance sector: MMC was upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan and downgraded RNR to Neutral while ALL remains top pick in earnings preview. Margins for re/insurers and growth for brokers have peaked and JPMC projects them to moderate further. Still, fundamentals in the business are healthy. In JPMC’s view, these factors, along with expected strong Q325 results, the group’s underperformance, and current valuations, position P&C stocks to outperform.

• AKRO to be acquired by NVO for up to $5.2B in cash where Akero holders will receive $54.00 per share in cash and a non-transferable Contingent Value Right (CVR) which will entitle its holder to receive a cash payment of $6.00 upon full U.S. regulatory approval of efruxifermin.
• The AKRO deal marked the 3^rd M&A deal in MASH sector this year as last month, RHHBY said it would acquire ETNB for up to $3.5B and earlier this year, GSK bought an experimental MASH drug from Boston Pharmaceuticals for $1.2 billion upfront.
• AZN said plans to increase investment and scope of its Virginia manufacturing facility to $4.5B, creating 3,600 new jobs.
• GDRX, CVS shares jumped after Reuters reported retail pharmacies and prescription drug savings site GoodRx are in discussions with the Trump administration about joining its TrumpRx website, indicating an expansion beyond the early description of it as a link to drugmakers’ direct discounts.
• SUPN upgraded to overweight and tgt raised to $65 from $40 at Piper
• TELO said late its experimental drug, Telomir-1, was able to kill aggressive triple-negative breast cancer cells in lab studies by disrupting how the cells use iron and energy. Earlier this week, co said Telomir-1 restored the activity of two key tumor-suppressing genes in aggressive prostate cancer.
• TEVA shares got a bounce after the WSJ reported the Trump administration isn’t planning to impose tariffs on generic drugs. India, the world’s largest supplier of generic prescription drugs to the US, plays a pivotal role in meeting American demand, accounting for 47% of all generic prescriptions.

• In Shipping: U.S. imports of containerized goods in September fell 8.4% y/y, including a 22.9% drop in goods from China, amid ongoing trade disturbances from President Trump’s tariff policies, data released on Thursday showed. U.S. seaports handled 2.31 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of container cargo last month, the third-highest September volume on record despite being a decline from last year.

• Rare earth stocks (MP, METC, CRML, TMQ, USAR) shares rise as China tightened its rare earth export controls on Thursday, as introduced new controls on rare-earth and rare-earth related technologies, requiring foreign entities to obtain government approval before re-exporting products of Chinese origin to other countries. ALB tgt raised to $85 from $70 at TD Cowen saying the company will get a small bump from spot carbonate and spodumene prices and as China tightened export controls on rare earths.

• In Data Center: shares of VRT, ETN, GEV and other data center names pushed higher after Bloomberg reported MSFT CFO Amy Hood previously said current constraints on data center availability would continue through the end of 2025, but the data center crunch will continue for longer than the company has outlined as it struggles to keep up with cloud demand.
• In Storage: NTNX was downgraded from Outperform to Market Perform at Northland saying risk VMW tailwind not as strong as anticipated due to RHT becoming more aggressive on capturing VMW customer migrations.
• Mobile Gaming tech: RBLX was upgraded to Neutral from Sell at MoffettNathanson noting that user metrics have exploded higher and that the inflection has been driven by new, viral experiences (but remains concerned about valuation). Needham hosted expert call with the CEO of InCircle analytics who was bullish on Unity (U), coming in at the high end of their expectations for Q3 and expecting additional acceleration in Q4 driven by performance by Vector, while for APP, said core mobile gaming remains strong although the expert noted slight YoY growth deceleration in Q3 and expected in Q4.
• In Semiconductors: The U.S. approved several billion dollars’ worth of NVDA chip exports to the UAE, Bloomberg News reported; TSM reported Q3 revenue rose 30% y/y, beating the market forecast; revenue for July-September came in at T$989.92B ($32.47B), compared with T$759.69B y/y and was in the mid-point of guidance of $31.8B-$33B issued by TSMC in July. Cantor raised NVDA price target to $300 (Street high), reiterating “Top Pick” as it sees $3T-$4T AI infrastructure market by 2030.