The S&P 500 got its record back on Tuesday and most of the index was not invited. It closed at 7,818.93 on October 6, the first close above 7,800 and the first record since August 13, and the Nasdaq Composite set one of its own at 27,599.79. Then an OpenAI revenue correction knocked the Nasdaq down 1.25% on Thursday. Friday repaired most of it. The S&P closed the week at 7,811.54, up 1.2%, the Dow at 51,654.95, up 0.9%, and the Nasdaq at 27,366.17, up 0.6% for a fourth straight weekly gain. The Russell 2000 fell 0.9%.
Underneath that, the week was a warning dressed as a quiet tape. Long rates behaved, with the 10-year closing at 5.24% and the 30-year at 5.60%. Anything priced in dollars did not. September ISM services put prices paid at 74.0, the highest since July 2022, with 17 industries reporting higher prices and none lower. Preliminary October Michigan sentiment fell to 46.3 from 48.1, with year-ahead inflation expectations at 4.7%. Brent settled at $104.72, up 2.4%. And when the S&P printed that record, 46% of its members were above their 200-day.
Scorecard: October 5
Seven rows. Five right, one wrong, one split.
- ISM services: headline above 55.0, prices paid below 75. Split. The headline missed by a tenth at 54.9. Prices paid cleared the bar at 74.0, which is not the comfort it looks like: that is a four-year high.
- October 28 hike odds stay below 30% after the minutes. Right. Futures held in the high teens to low twenties all week. The minutes did not move them, because the minutes were about December.
- 10-year weekly close below 5.30%. Right. 5.24%. The conditional second leg, below 5.10% on claims above 210,000, never got graded.
- Jobless claims rise above 210,000 from 197,000. Wrong. Claims printed 197,000 again, a fourth straight week under 200,000. Continuing claims moved instead: up 17,000 to 1.716 million.
- S&P 500 reclaims 7,743 and holds 7,650 on closes. Right on both. 7,773.99, 7,818.93, 7,801.77, 7,765.36, 7,811.54. The worst close sat 115 points above support.
- Nasdaq takes out the 27,244.28 record close by Friday. Right by Monday. 27,477.31, then 27,599.79 on Tuesday, with 234 points handed back by Friday.
- Micron holds $1,000. Right. It closed at $1,029.00 after a 4.79% Thursday drop, with Friday's low at $1,017.00. Down about 4%, which is what a $25 billion capex plan costs even when the supply story holds.
The claims miss matters more than its one row. This column read 197,000 as labor strength, corrected to call it a hiring freeze, then forecast rising claims to confirm the freeze. That is the wrong instrument twice. A freeze produces no firing, so claims stay healthy right up until they do not.
The Minutes Blamed Oil and AI, Not Wages
Wednesday's minutes from the September 15 and 16 meeting read more hawkish than the hold they helped price. Every participant backed the 25 basis point move to 3.75% to 4.00%, and most assessed another hike would likely be appropriate by year end. The reasoning is the part to keep: the committee named geopolitical developments that had pushed up crude oil and refined fuel prices, plus surging AI-related investment, as sources of inflation pressure. Wages did not lead.
That is a committee describing a supply-side and capex-driven price level, which one soft payroll print does not repair. It also explains the gap between the two meetings on the board: futures put an October 28 hike near 20% and a December hike near 86%. Governor Waller said the quiet part on Thursday. More hikes are likely if the data cooperate, and they need not come at consecutive meetings.
The $50 Billion Was an Accounting Line. The Reaction Was Not.
The biggest single move of the week came from a number that changed nothing. OpenAI told investors it hit roughly $50 billion of annualized revenue at the end of September, against the roughly $68 billion widely reported a week earlier. The gap is largely definitional: the higher figure counted gross revenue booked through partners, which is how Anthropic reports and how OpenAI does not. OpenAI still guides to $70 billion or better by year end.
The tape ignored the footnote. Oracle fell about 5% on Thursday, CoreWeave nearly 8%, AMD about 4%, and Nvidia 2.94% to $230.48. Nvidia closed the week at $229.28, down 2.0%, after an intraday record of $243.37 on Tuesday. Intel fell roughly 12%.
The story alongside it is the one that reprices things. The Wall Street Journal reported Broadcom in early talks for more than $50 billion of debt financing to help OpenAI buy custom chips, while Oracle works with Apollo and Goldman Sachs on a vehicle that buys chips and leases them back. Oracle's long-term debt has nearly doubled to more than $160 billion in two years. AI capex is migrating from cash flow onto credit, and credit reprices with the long end. At a 5.60% thirty-year, that is the exposure to track.
This Week
- Monday: Columbus Day. Stocks trade, the bond market is closed. Houthi strikes hit Riyadh's King Khalid airport on Saturday, killing 12 and injuring more than 300, and hit it again Sunday, with claimed strikes on Dammam's airport and two Aramco sites. Exports are not reported disrupted. Brent is near $104.
- Tuesday: JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo before the open. Consensus has JPMorgan near $5.90 on about $51.5 billion, with sector earnings growth around 10%. The first hike since 2023 lands inside this quarter, so this is where the bank call gets tested.
- Wednesday: September CPI. Consensus is roughly 3.7% headline from 3.4%, with core near 2.4% and 0.2% monthly, against a 3.57% Cleveland Fed nowcast. Gasoline does the headline work, so core is the print, and 0.3% or higher puts October 28 back on the table. The Beige Book, Morgan Stanley, and ASML also land.
- Thursday: PPI, retail sales with consensus near 0.3% after 1.2%, claims near 195,000, and the Philadelphia Fed survey. TSMC reports, with September revenue already out at NT$511.86 billion, up 54.6%.
- Friday: Chair Warsh speaks from Bangkok, his first remarks after the CPI print and two weeks before the decision.
- Bitcoin. It slid from about $86,480 to roughly $82,546 while spot ETFs shed about $679 million, $484.9 million of it on Wednesday. Price down and flows down is worse than last week's price up and flows flat. The $150,000 call stands, retired only on a weekly close below $55,000.
Key Levels for the Week
| September core CPI on Wednesday | 0.2% or lower month over month, headline at or below 3.7% |
| October 28 hike odds after CPI | Stay below 35% |
| 10-year yield, weekly close | Below 5.30%, and above 5.10% unless retail sales print negative |
| JPMorgan on Tuesday | EPS above $5.90 on revenue above $51.5 billion |
| S&P 500, on a closing basis | Holds 7,765 and takes out the 7,818.93 record |
| Brent | Weekly close below $110 absent a confirmed hit to Saudi export capacity |
| Bitcoin | Reclaims $86,000 and weekly ETF flows turn positive |
My Take
Last week priced two worlds and refused to choose. Rates came in, the index made a high, the Nasdaq booked a fourth straight weekly gain. In the same five sessions, services prices paid hit a four-year high, Michigan sentiment fell to 46.3 with inflation expectations at 4.7%, Brent added 2.4% into a weekend of strikes on Saudi infrastructure, and 46% of the index sat above its 200-day on the day it set a record. That is not an inflation problem solved. It is one postponed to Wednesday.
Playbook: treat Wednesday's core CPI as the only number that matters, because 0.2% keeps the October hold and 0.3% reopens a meeting the market has written down to 20%; own banks into Tuesday, where the first hike since 2023 should land in net interest income rather than in credit; keep Nvidia at BUY with the $268 target after a 2.0% week that left it at $229.28, and read the OpenAI revenue correction as a change in definition rather than in demand; stay with memory and hold Micron above $1,000, since Friday's $1,017 low was tested and bought; buy the 10-year between 5.25% and 5.35% rather than chasing 5.24%, because December near 86% is not in the long end; and hold Bitcoin's $150,000 target with the $55,000 retirement line, reading a second week of outflows as the signal price has not shown.