Stock market today: Nasdaq surges 2%, Dow and S&P 500 gain as chip stocks rally, oil prices fall
Stocks rallied on Monday as oil prices fell, bitcoin (BTC-USD) prices surged above $85,000, and tech stocks surged ahead of AI leaders’ dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) saw the strongest gains, climbing 2% to near a record high. The S&P 500 (^GSPC), meanwhile, gained 1.4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose 0.6% after the blue-chip index posted its third straight weekly loss.
Meta (META) stock jumped 11%, AMD (AMD) stock gained 8%, and Intel (INTC) popped by 12% as AI enthusiasm returned to markets.
Sentiment went risk-on as oil prices retreated below $100 per barrel amid hopes that the US and Iran would resume diplomatic talks. Bitcoin also jumped to an eight-month high, lifting crypto-related stocks like Strategy (MSTR) and Coinbase (COIN).
Stocks have powered through a wall of worry during this historically weak month, remaining resilient despite rising bond yields, geopolitical risk in the Middle East, growing bets on Fed rate hikes, and AI jitters.
With a sparser economic and earnings calendar this week, one thing markets will be closely watching is the summit between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.
The high-stakes talks are expected to focus on extending the tariff truce and cooperation on artificial intelligence. Several AI leaders, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, former Apple CEO Tim Cook, Qualcomm Inc. CEO Cristiano Amon, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, will also attend a dinner with the Chinese president. Wall Street executives Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and JPMorgan Chase CEO will also join, Yahoo Finance has learned.
The summit comes at a critical point for those companies, after an essay by Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) CEO Dario Amodei broke open a long-simmering debate over whether or not frontier AI labs should pace model development.
LIVE 15 updates
-
-
-
Apollo’s Slok says AI credit boom rests on $2 trillion cash flow assumption
Apollo chief economist Torsten Sløk says the credit picture underpinning hundreds of billions of AI data center investments comes down to a single widely held assumption on Wall Street.
It’s the expectation that hyperscalers, including Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), Meta (META), Amazon (AMZN), and others, can grow their collective operating cash flow from $600 billion in 2025 to $2 trillion by 2030.
Apollo “If this doesn’t happen, then the risk is that the AI trade weakens, with credit spreads widening, capex plans getting cut and ultimately US GDP growth slowing,” Sløk wrote in a note on Monday. (Disclosure: Yahoo is a portfolio company of funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management.)
-
Russia set to extend diesel export ban, putting more pressure on diesel prices
Russia is set to extend its diesel export ban past the end of September, Bloomberg News reported Monday, a sign of more pressure to come just as US diesel prices hit fresh all-time highs.
The news comes after an attack by the Ukrainian military over the weekend on a major Russian oil refinery outside Moscow, igniting a new wave of fears over Russia’s ability to keep producing diesel. Prior to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the country was responsible for roughly 10% of global diesel exports.
Diesel prices have raced ahead since the start of the war in Iran. Chart: Bloomberg LP · Bloomberg LP That the ban will be extended is likely to put even more pressure on prices in the US, which on Monday climbed to an all-time high of over $6.50, just over a month out from critical midterm elections for the White House.
Diesel is often called the workhorse of the global economy, and the price of the oil distillate is critical to any business that moves physical goods. As the average price of diesel in the US has raced upward from $3.69 per gallon a year ago to $6.51 today, that runup has pressured margins across market sectors.
-
World installed record level of renewable energy capacity in 2025, new report finds. It must double that to reach 2030 target.
The world added a record 693 gigawatts of renewable power capacity in 2025, a 15.5% year-over-year increase, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). That’s equivalent to over half of the US’s total electricity generation capacity in 2025.
However, the report found that countries will need to double that capacity each year and add 1,204 GW annually through 2030 to reach an intergovernmental consensus target of 11.2 terawatts by 2030. In 2024, nearly 200 countries agreed to triple renewable capacity by 2030 to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
“With an all-time record of new renewable power capacity added in 2025, avoiding almost half a trillion US dollars in fossil fuel costs, IRENA’s new data shows why the global energy transition is charging ahead — because it makes even more economic sense with each passing day, amid the ongoing fossil fuel cost chaos hitting households, businesses and national budgets,” UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell said. “But while the progress toward tripling renewable energy and doubling energy efficiency is encouraging, the world is still not moving quickly enough.”
Workers install a solar panel on the rooftop of a private business establishment as Cubans grapple with an ongoing energy crisis exacerbated by fuel shortages, Havana, Cuba February 18, 2026. REUTERS/Norlys Perez · REUTERS / REUTERS Asia dominates renewable power installations, with 56.1% of global renewable power capacity and the fastest growth rate. Europe has 18.1% share, while North America rounds out the top three regions with 11.8% share.
The cost of capital is the main differentiator between regions’ installed capacity, the IRENA report said. While costs for solar and onshore wind technologies have become cheaper, higher financing costs due to local debt markets, currency fluctuations, and policy risk, among other factors, can offset those savings.
Crucially, global investment in renewable installation fell for the second consecutive year to $625 billion. IRENA says countries will need to collectively invest up to $1 trillion each year between 2026 and 2030 for the world to meet its targets.
-
AMD stock soars to new record as semiconductors bounce
Chip stocks were back in the driver’s seat on Monday as the PHLX Semiconductor Index (^SOX) surged more than 3%.
An upcoming state dinner between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with numerous AI titans expected to be in attendance, fueled optimism about the AI trade.
Chipmaker AMD soared to an all-time high above $610 a share, giving it a $1 trillion market cap during the trading session.
Semiconductor stocks on Monday Sept 21 Shares of central processing unit designer Arm Holdings (ARM) and chipmaker Intel both rose 10% as social media giant Meta’s (META) new AI agent MUSE sparked a broader rally among server CPU suppliers.
The chip sector has seen additional tailwinds, including a report last week that SK Hynix (SKHY) is exploring a deal with Intel (INTC).
-
-
-
-
-
-
Oura looks to raise $2.2 billion in IPO
Smart ring maker Oura and its shareholders expect to offer 50,000,000 shares priced at $40.00-$44.00 per share in its upcoming IPO, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
At that price, the Finnish company would be valued at up to $14.1 billion. The company plans to go public under the ticker “OURA.”
The company makes rings that track 50+ health metrics for users. Last year, the company sold 3.6 million smart rings, which retail for between $399 and $499, according to Bloomberg.
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Allen & Company LLC, and Jefferies are leading the offering, according to the filing.
Middle school teacher Kate Stoye puts on an Oura ring, a wearable sleep tracking device, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Hiram, Ga. (AP Photo/Emilie Megnien) · ASSOCIATED PRESS -
Bessent proposes US-China AI safety notifications in talks with Chinese vice premier
Ahead of the meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, for hours to discuss a range of topics, from trade to AI.
The US side said it proposed a new AI safety notification mechanism for the upcoming negotiations, while the Chinese state news agency Xinhua acknowledged only that the two sides discussed AI.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, after meeting China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng, ahead of a summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, at JPMorgan Chase’s global corporate headquarters in New York City, US, September 20, 2026. REUTERS/Vincent Alban · REUTERS / REUTERS Reuters reports:
Bessent told reporters that the two sides discussed setting up a new US-China AI dialogue, with a particular emphasis on national security concerns with a notification system for common goals and common threats that would cover AI-related incidents that rise to a national security level.
“We think that, just like with any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and the number two AI powers in the world is very important,” Bessent said at the conclusion of the talks.
Trump and Xi first discussed potential consultations on AI development in May in Beijing, but that forum was never formalized.
-
-
