2026.9.25 US Stocks Daily | All Three Indexes Rise as Long-Term Yields Hit Highest Since 2007
The Dow’s 0.93% gain was the largest of the three major indexes, closing at 51,828.62. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq rose 0.51% and 0.48%, to 7,743.41 and 27,068.72. The VIX fell 5.11% on the day to 14.87. What lifted the indexes was oil. WTI dropped 2.29% to $92.44, and Bloomberg attributed the day’s rally directly to expectations that the Strait of Hormuz could reopen. US officials said that day they were holding “positive, constructive” discussions with Iran through intermediaries.
Polymarket was pricing the same event at the same time. “Hormuz transit returns to normal by Sept. 30” sat at 1%, with the other side at 99%, and 24-hour volume of nearly $1 million made it the most active contract on the site. Stocks are buying the idea that the negotiating table is set. The betting market is wagering that nothing can change in the five days left this month. Neither is wrong. The trouble is that oil has already discounted part of “talks succeed,” so if the talks stall, $92 can be retraced upward without any new news.
The 10-year Treasury closed at 5.18%, up more than 16 basis points this week, another new high since 2007. Fed official Hammack attributed the rise in long-end yields to several factors combined and did not single one out. Reuters said Friday’s pullback in oil gave support to battered bonds, but the direction for the week is unchanged. The short end offers even less hope: Polymarket puts the probability of a 25-basis-point cut at the October meeting at 0. Long-term yields at their highest since 2007, rate-cut expectations zeroed out, and volatility held below 15 is a combination that usually doesn’t last long.
ARK’s holdings table is more telling than the sector moves. From Sept. 23 to 25, all forty positions in ARKK were trimmed without exception. The cut was 10.0% for the vast majority, 9.9% for Teradyne and Eli Lilly, and 11.3% for Tempus. Tesla went from about 2.40 million shares to about 2.16 million, and SpaceX, Circle, Coinbase and CRISPR all show the same 10.0% down the list. In ARKG, most positions were cut 5.1%, Twist Bioscience slightly more at 5.3%, and the one exception was Scribe Therapeutics, which was increased by 26.4%. When nearly the same percentage lands on almost every holding, the move was made at the fund level.
Meta fell 3.36% to $751.43, leaving its market cap at $1.48 trillion, the ugliest performance among the mega caps that day. Tesla fell 1.77% to $371.24 and is still down 15.70% year to date. Broadcom edged up 0.34% to $351.55, and Microsoft closed at its highest level this year.
Morgan Stanley said a notice issued by Oracle would weigh on data center debt, and on the same day Larry Ellison pledged another 19% of his Oracle holdings as loan collateral. The news flash did not explain the mechanism, but the direction is clear: financing for AI capex is shifting from cash flow and equity toward collateral and leverage. Jensen Huang’s line that day was “Now, or soon, we will be able to know everything and do anything.” The distance between those two statements is the distance between the narrative and the cost of financing.
The dollar index fell 0.25% to 101.04, and MarketWatch says the dollar’s death cross is approaching. Silver rose 1.90% at the open to $65.22. A falling dollar, rising silver and record-high long-term yields point to the same thing: holding dollar assets requires higher compensation. Trump’s ban on Canadian alcohol takes effect Tuesday. Canada’s minister responsible for US trade, LeBlanc, said he is in no hurry to sign a bad deal since talks collapsed on Aug. 21. The New York Times reported that ICE raids in beef-producing regions have raised concerns about meat prices. These are odds and ends that add to prices, and the refusal of 5.18% to come down is tied to them.
From here, watch that 5.18%. If the long end keeps pushing higher while the VIX stays below 15, the market is pricing a cost of capital already as expensive as 2007 using extremely low volatility, and that kind of combination breaks without warning. For today’s rally to hold, the Hormuz talks have to become concrete and oil has to fall into the $80s, which is what it would take to give long-term yields real room to fall.