Market Report for Monday, September 15, 2025
Wall Street tiptoed to fresh records Monday, a quiet lap before Wednesday’s rate-cut Powell hour. Tech did the pulling: Google broke a $3T market cap, Tesla rediscovered gravity’s off switch. Even gold joined the PR team.
Level Change 9/15/25 (%)
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
+0.1 Dow
+0.9 Nasdaq
+0.8 Nasdaq 100
+0.5 S&P 500
-0.1 S&P 400
+0.0 S&P 600
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched records, powered by megatech’s eternal glow.
Google (GOOG +4.3%) vaulted into the $3T club — only the fourth member, dues payable in antitrust filings — on AI enthusiasm and the comfort of being everyone’s monopoly of choice.
Tesla (TSLA +3.6%) helped pull the caravan, somehow growing sales in 30 markets despite its Musky ringmaster. The “Pre-Crazy Elon Edition” bumper sticker seems to be working. Production at Tesla’s Gruenheide plant in Germany is set to ramp.
Yields stayed obliging. The 10-year Treasury dipped to ~4.0% late last week, fattening multiples and lifting bond math spirits. Falling yields make corporate earnings look bigger in the funhouse mirror of valuation guesswork. Year-to-date, investment-grade bonds are up about 6.4%, already beating their starting yield. With cuts on deck, short bills should slip faster than Powell dodges straight answers, but a modest curve steepen (short rates diving while long ones dawdle) could blunt bondholder exuberance. Expect the 10-year to meander 4.0%–4.5% absent a shock.
Speaking of cuts: the FOMC looms Wednesday, where futures lean hard to -25 bps and eyes will parse the dot plot for how quickly “one and done” becomes “two or three, maybe four.” Also hovering: whether Trump-appointed economist Stephen Miran clears the Senate in time to grab a chair at this very meeting. Nothing like joining the Fed five minutes before the vote.
The day’s lone macro pothole arrived from New York: Empire State manufacturing slid back below zero (-8.7), with orders and shipments soft. This is more amber light than red, but doesn’t sing “reacceleration.” Tomorrow’s retail sales will say whether the consumer can carry the melody or is just mouthing along at karaoke night.
Geopolitics made a cameo without stealing the scene. US–China talks in Madrid produced a TikTok ownership “framework” (Washington says), enough to cool rhetoric if not tariffs.
Beijing added spice by deciding Nvidia’s 2020 Mellanox buy — a networking firm, not a dermatology clinic — violated antimonopoly law, then launched a dumping probe into analog chips. Nvidia shrugged as Texas Instruments and Analog Devices took the body blows. TXN crumpled 2.4%. China’s timing, naturally, has nothing to do whatsoever with the AI arms race.
On the commodity marquee, gold finally staged its photo op, closing above $3,700 for the first time, an inconvenient reminder that “transitory” is now pushing middle age. It’s the metal’s best year since 1979.
From our Odds and Ends file: Whirlpool told Washington its rivals are cooking the books at customs, undervaluing imports to dodge tariffs. Smuggling 101, now with cloud-based accounting.
Add it up and you get a market happy to pre-price good news, fact-check bad news into oblivion, and wait for Powell. Records are nice; guidance is nicer. The punchline arrives Wednesday: celebration or sell-the-news salad.
— Jason Kelly
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