NEW YORK — Wall Street opened the week on a confident footing on Monday, with the Nasdaq Composite closing at a fresh record as the biggest technology companies climbed, oil prices softened and investors began looking ahead to the corporate earnings season.
The Nasdaq rose 1.05% to finish at 27,477.31, while the broader S&P 500 added 0.66% to close at 7,773.99. It was the second straight session in which the Nasdaq reached an all-time high, following a strong finish to last week. The S&P 500 ended just short of the peak it set in mid-August and is up almost 14% so far in 2026.
Big tech does the heavy lifting
Trading began unevenly. The S&P 500 edged up about 0.2% at the opening bell, the Nasdaq gained roughly 0.4%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped. As the session wore on, buying broadened and the large growth names pulled the indexes higher.
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and Tesla all advanced in afternoon trading, with gains of roughly 1.5% to 2.5%. Cerebras Systems, a chip designer, jumped about 8% after OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman described the company as a close partner. Breadth was healthy by the end of the day: ten of the S&P 500’s eleven sectors rose, led by materials and energy, and advancing shares outnumbered decliners by more than two to one.
Cheaper oil and a softer jobs report
Two developments gave traders a reason to buy. The first was oil. Crude prices slipped after exports from the Middle East picked up and the Group of Seven nations pledged to increase supply. Europe also agreed to release around 100 million barrels of diesel. After weeks in which energy costs and the conflict involving Iran weighed on sentiment, any relief at the pump and in the futures market was welcome.
The second was the labour market. Friday’s report showed US employers added far fewer jobs in September than economists had expected, with payrolls rising by roughly 29,000 against a forecast near 90,000. For the Federal Reserve, which raised interest rates last month for the first time in three years, weaker hiring eased pressure to move again quickly. According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, the probability of a rate increase at the Fed’s October meeting has dropped to about 24%, from around 70% a week earlier.
That does not mean the rate debate is over. Markets still see a meaningful chance of a hike before the end of the year, and long-dated Treasury yields remain close to multi-year highs, a reminder that borrowing costs are still a headwind for equities.
Deals add to the momentum
Merger activity also supplied headlines. Shares in PTC, the US industrial software company, surged about 34% after France’s Schneider Electric agreed to buy it for $22.6 billion in cash. Schneider’s own shares fell sharply in Europe as investors weighed the price and the financing.
In the logistics sector, RXO soared roughly 29% after C.H. Robinson Worldwide said it would acquire the transportation broker in a stock-and-cash transaction valued at $5.8 billion. C.H. Robinson’s shares fell about 12%.
Earnings season is next
With the economic calendar relatively quiet, investors have been searching for positive catalysts. Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth, said that with earnings roughly a week away, traders had gravitated towards falling energy prices as the bright spot of the day.
The reporting period begins next week with the large US banks. Analysts surveyed by LSEG expect S&P 500 profits to grow by more than 30% from a year earlier, driven largely by companies tied to the artificial intelligence build-out. That is an unusually high bar, and it explains why markets have been willing to look past higher bond yields and elevated oil prices.
What lies beneath the headline
Record highs in the Nasdaq do not mean every stock is rising. On Monday the Nasdaq recorded 216 new 52-week lows against just 47 new highs, a sign that leadership remains concentrated in a limited group of large companies. Investors who follow market breadth will be watching whether the rally widens or narrows in the weeks ahead.
What to watch this week
The next test comes on Wednesday, when the Fed publishes the minutes of its September meeting. Traders will scan the document for clues on how many officials favour further increases and how they weigh inflation against the cooling jobs market. Any hawkish surprise could unsettle a market that has pushed to records while yields sit near their highest levels in more than two decades.
For now, the message from Monday’s trading is that investors are still prepared to pay up for growth, provided the economic data stays gentle and energy prices keep easing.
This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
