US Stocks Fall, Nasdaq Drops 1.13%; Tech Shares Lead Decline, Software Stocks Buck Trend; SpaceX Drops Over 4%

TradingKey - The 10-year Treasury yield reached its highest level since July 2007, while a rebound in crude oil prices also weighed on equities, sending U.S. stocks lower. Tech and consumer stocks led the decline, while software stocks bucked the trend to gain.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.68% to 51,511.59; the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 1.13% to 26,936.04; and the S&P 500 Index lost 0.75% to 7,706.03.

Tech Stock Performance

SpaceX (SPCX) dropped 4.11% to $148.36.

SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell plans to sell over $52 million worth of stock. Regulatory filings show that Shotwell intends to sell 342,170 shares, with a total market value of approximately $51.96 million, acquired through the cash exercise of stock options. Meanwhile, another financial disclosure revealed that an investment account held in the name of U.S. President Trump engaged in short-term trading of SpaceX stock in July, further drawing public attention to insider trading.

Among mega-cap tech stocks, Meta Platforms (META) rose 1.02%, Microsoft (MSFT) gained 0.52%, and Tesla (TSLA) advanced 0.32%; on the downside, SpaceX (SPCX) fell 4.11%, Google (GOOGL) dropped 3.80%, Alphabet-C (GOOG) declined 3.58%, Broadcom (AVGO) fell 2.62%, Amazon (AMZN) lost 2.24%, Nvidia (NVDA) slid 1.47%, and TSMC (TSM) fell 1.20%.

[Source: FutuBull]

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 1.23% to 12,534.27 points. Among its 30 constituents, 4 rose and 26 fell.

Among memory stocks, SanDisk (SNDK) dropped 3.73%, SK Hynix (SKHY) fell 3.12%, and Micron Technology (MU) declined 2.22%.

Among software stocks, Palo Alto Networks (PANW) gained 5.00%, CrowdStrike (CRWD) rose 4.97%, Palantir (PLTR) advanced 3.68%, and Fortinet (FTNT) climbed 2.57%.

Company News

Intel: CPU Weighting Rises in the Agent Era; 18A in Mass Production, 14A Planned for Volume Ramp in 2028

At its Technology Innovation and Industry Ecosystem Conference, Intel stated that as AI workloads shift from model inference to complex task execution, the CPU-to-GPU configuration ratio in data centers is expected to gradually approach 1:1, with certain complex agent scenarios requiring higher CPU density. The company noted that Intel 18A has entered mass production, while 18A-P has entered risk trial production; risk trial production of Intel 14A for internal products is scheduled to start in the second half of 2027, targeting a high-volume manufacturing ramp in 2028. Chen Baoli, head of Intel's data center business, stated that CPUs, GPUs, and memory are currently facing supply tightness, and the company hopes to leverage new capacity to ease supply constraints.

Qualcomm Unveils Dual Flagship Snapdragon Chips, Focusing on On-Device AI and Agentic Computing

At this year's Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, both built on a 2nm process with Oryon CPU clock speeds reaching 5 GHz. Compared with the previous generation, the standard version delivers CPU, GPU, and NPU performance improvements of 10%, 35%, and 14%, respectively; the Extreme version boosts NPU performance by 35% and increases performance-per-watt by up to 33%.

Industry & Macro News

U.S. Treasury Sell-Off Intensifies as 10-Year Yield Tops 5.1%

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose above 5.1%, hitting a new high since July 2007. Long-term Treasury yields also stabilized at multi-year highs. The 30-year Treasury yield rose about 10 basis points on the day to approach 5.4%, coming close to the high since 2007 set just last Tuesday.

U.S. Composite PMI Hits 5-Year High in September

Driven by a sharp surge in new orders, U.S. business activity expanded beyond expectations in September, reaching its highest level in more than five years. On Wednesday, data released by S&P Global showed that the preliminary U.S. Composite PMI Output Index, which tracks manufacturing and services sectors, rose to 58.4 this month, significantly higher than 56.0 in August and hitting its highest level since July 2021. A PMI reading above the 50 boom-bust line indicates expansion in the private sector.

OECD Raises Global Inflation Forecasts, Expects Fed to Hike Rates Once More This Year

The OECD released its latest Economic Outlook, raising its G20 inflation forecasts for this year and next to 4.1% and 3.6%, respectively, up from previous projections of 4.0% and 3.1%. The global economic growth forecast for this year was revised up from 2.8% to 2.9%, while next year's forecast was lowered from 3.1% to 3.0%. The OECD expects the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates once more within the year, with the eurozone, Australia, and South Korea potentially implementing further modest rate hikes, while Japan continues policy tightening. U.S. growth forecasts for this year and next were set at 2.2% and 2.1%, respectively, both higher than June projections; AI infrastructure investment partially offset the impact of weak consumption, while energy costs weigh on next year's growth.