Stock market today: Dow falls 500 points, S&P 500 and Nasdaq retreat from records as Treasury yields hit 24-year high Grace O'Donnell and David Hollerith Updated Wed, October 7, 2026 at 12:00 PM EDT 1 min read ^IXIC -0.47% ^GSPC -0.33% ^DJI -0.68% ^TYX +0.87% NVDA -0.94% Trade NVIDIA on Coinbase Trading disclosure Trading disclosure The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link. Prices displayed are informational.
US stocks fell on Wednesday morning as global bond yields rose and investors awaited the minutes of the Fed's September meeting.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropped 0.7%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) declined 0.3% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell 0.5%. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 closed at record highs the day before.
Go deeper with AlphaSpace 51,172.59 -348.69 (-0.68%) As of 12:49:51 PM EDT. Market Open. ^DJI ^GSPC ^IXIC The yield on 30-year Treasury (^TYX) bonds rose to 5.70%, the highest since 2002, ahead of the release later today of minutes from the Federal Reserve's September policy meeting, when policymakers raised interest rates to combat inflation.
Sentiment had turned more buoyant in markets this week as bullish earnings estimates helped lift major indexes to all-time highs. But as Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi pointed out on Tuesday, those records belie a highly concentrated market in which the index's top three holdings (Nvidia (NVDA), Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT)) account for roughly a fifth of the S&P 500.
Factors that have weighed on markets this year could still pose impediments. Brent crude oil futures (BZ=F) remain above $100 per barrel amid the latest Houthi attacks in the Middle East. Bond yields retreated on Tuesday but are still hovering near multidecade highs.
On Wednesday, the Fed's meeting minutes will provide clues as to whether the central bank's September rate hike was a one-off or whether its thinking indicates more rate hikes ahead. As of Tuesday, traders priced in roughly 20% odds of a rate hike at the Fed's October meeting next week.
On the earnings docket, Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI) and Applied Digital (APLD) report results.
Webull (BULL) stock plunged 20% on Wednesday after US lawmakers reportedly flagged that the company is "tied in structural ways" to China's government, risking its regulatory standing in the US.
The stock was on track for its worst daily drop since April 17, 2025, according to Dow Jones and FactSet market data. Over the past month, the stock has cratered by 40%.
On Wednesday, CNBC reported that a bipartisan House Select Committee on China assessment found that the company poses a national security risk and that concerns about its operations have "escalated" over the past year.
Webull is a digital investment platform headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla. Yet the congressional report stated there was "a profound gap" between how the company marketed itself as an American company and how it is actually controlled.
Webull pushed back on the report, telling CNBC that it contained "significant inaccuracies and unsupported conclusions."
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) prices tumbled more than 3% to $83,000 on Wednesday, sending crypto-related stocks lower as forced long liquidations added to a broader market sell-off.
The token hovered below $83,000 after a swift crypto sell-off triggered roughly $696 million in liquidations over 24 hours, with long-positioned traders bearing almost all of the losses, according to Coinglass data.
The pullback follows bitcoin's rally in early October to its highest price level since January.
"Trading volume remains unusually low" across spot exchanges and US ETFs compared with historical averages, said Glassnode head of research Frederik Theissen. "The market now leans on positioning more than on fresh demand."
Yahoo Finance's Pras Subramanian reports that SpaceX (SPCX) stock slipped in early trading on Wednesday as the Elon Musk-led space and AI company is reportedly set to tap the debt markets in a big way.
Bloomberg reported that SpaceX is looking to issue $40 billion in new debt to buy Nvidia chips for its data centers. Per the report, the split would be $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion in investment-grade debt, with bond investment giant PIMCO looking at the deal, and Apollo Global leading the financing. (Disclosure: Yahoo is a portfolio company of funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management.)
Treasury yields hit new 24-year highs on Wednesday before paring back slightly.
The 10-year yield (^TNX) rose as high as 5.36%, its highest level since April 2002. The 30-year yield (^TYX) rose to a high of 5.73%, its highest level since May 2002.
"We do not see evidence that levels have overrun moves in Fed expectations, and on the contrary, we believe current pricing looks appropriate," JPMorgan analysts wrote last Friday. "If the market continues to price an incrementally more hawkish FOMC in response to incoming economic data, we could see upward repricing continue from here."
At 2 p.m. ET, the Fed will release the minutes from its September meeting, where officials opted to raise interest rates by 25 basis points. The minutes are slated to be particularly intriguing as Chairman Kevin Warsh took a more hawkish stance in September.
US stocks fell at Wednesday's open as investors weighed the balance of record-high stock indexes against overnight advances in oil prices and government bond yields ahead of the Federal Reserve's release of minutes from its September meeting.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) and S&P 500 (^GSPC) opened 0.7% and 0.5% lower, respectively, after closing at record highs Tuesday.
Go deeper with AlphaSpace 51,172.59 -348.69 (-0.68%) As of 12:49:51 PM EDT. Market Open. ^DJI ^GSPC ^IXIC Stock indexes have been running higher in recent days, thanks in large part to investor enthusiasm for a handful of AI boom giants that have dragged expectations for strong third quarter earnings growth higher. Meanwhile, rising borrowing costs remain the key worry. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX) climbed to 5.35% Wednesday morning, a multidecade high until last week.
Oil prices also edged higher, with Brent crude futures (BZ=F) moving toward $102 per barrel after Houthi attacks on Saudi airports revived concerns about the Middle East conflict.
Investors will turn later Wednesday to minutes from the Fed's September meeting as the latest opportunity to gauge appetite among policymakers for another rate hike.
Oil prices rose on Wednesday amid increased attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and an incoming storm in the Gulf Coast region.
Brent crude (BZ=F) rose to trade back above $101 per barrel while West Texas Intermediate crude (CL=F) was close to $90 a barrel.
Despite increased shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, UK officials have reported at least nine attacks in the critical waterway so far in October amid a continued US-Iran conflict.
Meanwhile, a tropical storm is nearing the Gulf coast, threatening to make landfall as a hurricane by Friday. Chevron said it is evacuating nonessential personnel from its offshore platforms in the region.
The agents have arrived. And so has the hardware that powers them.
Meta's (META) Muse and OpenAI's (OPAI.PVT) Dots have thrust sophisticated digital assistants at the front of their AI sales pitch. And in the same way that the race to train increasingly competent models has catapulted GPU makers to the top of the stock charts, the chipmakers sustaining AI agents are enjoying a "renaissance," Citi analyst Atif Malik put it in a note to clients on Tuesday, upgrading AMD's price target.
The potential success of AI agents has forced a rethink of the CPU market. Malik wrote that the total market for CPUs should be expanded from $29 billion in 2025 to $300 billion in 2030, in the wake of Meta's Muse debut.
Constellation Brands (STZ) stock fell 5% despite the Corona and Modelo beer maker beating Wall Street's earnings expectations.
In the second quarter, Constellation Brands reported $2.63 billion in net sales, above analysts' expectations of $2.54 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence consensus data. Adjusted earnings per share of $3.74 also topped estimates of $3.55.
Constellation Brands said that off-premise sales, which include beverages sold at grocery and convenience stores, declined, while on-premise sales at restaurants and bars grew.
The same trend held for the World Cup in June and July, where on-premise volumes were strong, but off-premise World Cup sales came in below industry expectations.
The company reaffirmed its full-year adjusted earnings per share forecast of $11.20-$11.90. It continues to see beer sales down 1% to up 1%, wine sales down 1% to up 1%, and enterprise sales down 1% to up 1%.
Yahoo Finance's Hamza Shaban writes in today's Morning Brief newsletter:
It's a new fact of life that AI agents are bypassing their sandboxes to get into places they aren't supposed to. We've learned to stomach (or largely ignore) cyberattacks as part of the cost of doing business, or really, existing, while being connected to the internet.
But AI agents present a new dilemma. Rather than bad actors probing vulnerabilities, wielding whatever tools they can, the agents are the sophisticated products of some of the most influential and powerful tech companies in the world.
"Agents going rogue is the biggest risk today. Imagine an agent on your corporate network hacked or hijacked or it goes rogue," Zscaler (ZS) founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry said on Yahoo Finance's Sozzi Unleashed. "Don't trust AI agents."
Every week, it seems, we're seeing sheepish disclosures by OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and co. that its agents "accidentally" hacked something it shouldn't have.
A society has to grapple with some element of crime. But what if those criminal acts are in part perpetuated by the supposedly upstanding corporations powering the S&P 500? While defense against rogue agents may feel futile, this is America, and we can always go on offense and throw the book.
Economic data: MBA mortgage applications, week ended Oct. 2 (-6% prior); NY Fed 1-year inflation expectations, September (+3.64% expected, +3.58% prior); FOMC meeting minutes, Sept. 16 meeting
Earnings calendar: Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI), Applied Digital (APLD)
Catch up on some other top stories from overnight:
Samsung investors want evidence profit boom has staying power
McDonald's sued over AI tool that recommends prices to US franchisees
Amazon Prime Day promises big discounts. Are you really saving money?
As AI bubble fears circulate, remember the railroad bust of 1873
Gold steady as more oil and falling yields ease rate-hike bets
David Ellison has built a Hollywood giant in Skydance. Now he wants to make it a tech company
The US dollar remained lower on Wednesday after stress in European bond markets abated and as eyes turned to the release of Federal Reserve minutes and speeches by its policymakers for signals on a potential rate hike.
The euro surged by the most in seven weeks in the prior session as French bond yields slid after the frontrunner in next spring's presidential election outlined plans to slash spending. The yen weakened even after a dovish Bank of Japan board member said she would support interest rate increases.
Later on Wednesday, the US central bank is due to release minutes of its September 15-16 policy meeting when it raised interest rates to contend with inflation. Comments from Fed policymakers have come across as less hawkish following lower-than-expected personal consumption expenditures (PCE) data and jobs data last week.
