What moved
- US: The S&P 500 closed up 1.49% at 7,764.70, the Nasdaq Composite 2.26% higher at 27,122.09 and the Dow 0.71% firmer at 52,048.83. The Nasdaq now sits 0.25% below its 52-week high; the Dow remains almost 5% under its own.
- Europe: The Euro Stoxx 50 finished up 1.31% at 6,318.20, the DAX 1.07% at 25,575.01, the CAC 40 0.92% at 8,138.94 and the FTSE 100 0.75% at 10,739.01.
- Asia: Taiwan led, up 3.09% at 47,718.84, with the Kospi closing back above 7,000 at 7,007.72, Shanghai 1.92% higher at 3,949.91 and the Hang Seng up 1.78% at 25,042.71. Tokyo was shut for a public holiday.
Why
Oil did the heavy lifting. Brent is trading at $96.01, down 7.57%, and WTI at $91.97, down 8.31%, after President Trump signalled he was willing to meet Iran's President Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, and Qatar confirmed messages had been exchanged between Washington and Tehran. Shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are reported at a six-month high and Saudi Arabia is working to restore its East-West pipeline, so the physical picture has been loosening even before the diplomacy. The move is a risk premium coming out rather than a demand signal: Tehran has not yet said it wants the meeting, which is why the energy complex fell harder than anything else rallied.
Cheaper crude fed straight into rates and then into growth stocks. The US 10-year yield finished 3.5 basis points lower at 4.963%, back under 5%, with the 30-year also down 3.5 basis points at 5.296%. Lower long yields lift the present value of far-off earnings, which is why the winners were the longest-duration names: communication services and technology gained 3.56% and 2.77% respectively, with chipmakers out front ahead of Thursday's Trump-Xi summit, where AI cooperation and an extension of the tariff truce are on the agenda. Korea's record September chip exports gave the same trade a lift in Asia overnight.
Bitcoin's 7.17% jump to $86,959 pulled crypto-linked equities along with it. Novo Nordisk was the day's big disappointment in Europe, closing 7.65% lower in Copenhagen after a capital markets day that promised more than $23bn of obesity sales by 2030 but gave investors little on near-term growth.
Sentiment & risk appetite
Risk appetite improved without becoming exuberant. The VIX ended at 14.87, essentially flat (+0.06), and the MOVE index is at 81.2, so neither equity nor rates volatility is pricing stress. The dollar index is a touch firmer at 100.42 (+0.2%) and gold is 1.05% lower at $4,378.60, both consistent with money leaving havens rather than hedging. The tape was narrow, though: energy fell 2.88%, utilities 1.07% and staples 1.06%, so the S&P's gain rests on two sectors. Outside the US, PrimerIQ's own advance-decline ratios were 2.18 in the UK, 1.21 across Europe and 1.63 in Asia, a broader participation than the sector split implies. Copper, up 2.51% at $6.78, adds a cyclical tell.
Economic calendar
This morning's Chicago Fed National Activity Index for August printed at -0.04, down from an upwardly revised +0.08 in July, a reading that says growth is running fractionally below trend. Chicago Fed President Goolsbee also spoke before the open. Nothing else of first-tier importance printed today.
The week builds from here: Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaks at the Treasury Market Conference on Tuesday, global flash PMIs land on Wednesday, and Thursday brings the Trump-Xi summit with a heavy Fed speaking schedule (Barr, Hammack and Paulson among them) running through Friday.
Earnings
Nothing of consequence reported in the US today. The corporate story was Novo Nordisk's capital markets day rather than a set of results, and Abivax released first-half numbers after the Paris close.