WTI drops 4.5%; 10-year yield at 4.972%

Meta jumps 11%, AMD 10%

AMD market cap tops $1 trillion

The New York Stock Exchange. [Getty Images]
The New York Stock Exchange. [Getty Images]

All three major US stock indexes rose Monday as international oil prices and US Treasury yields fell, with AI-related shares surging to push the Nasdaq Composite to a fresh all-time high.

The Nasdaq Composite closed up 599.55 points, or 2.3 percent, at 27,122.09 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday (local time), setting a new closing record. The gain was also the largest since Aug. 4, when the index rose 2.6 percent.

The S&P 500 rose 114.20 points, or 1.5 percent, to finish at 7,764.70. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 366.19 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 52,048.83.

AI-related stocks led the advance. Meta's share price surged 11.4 percent Monday — its biggest single-day gain since April last year — after the company's personal AI agent "Muse" topped the free-app chart on Apple's App Store.

Seo Sang-young, a managing director at Mirae Asset Securities, said Meta's personal AI agent Muse, unveiled Sept. 8, had ranked No. 1 in free iPhone app downloads in the United States for three consecutive days, signaling rapid mainstream adoption. He said the trend highlighted expectations that broader use of AI agents would sharply increase demand for inference and general-purpose CPU computing resources.

Semiconductor stocks also rallied across the board. AMD closed up 10 percent at $615.52, pushing its market cap above $1 trillion — making it the latest US chipmaker to reach that milestone, joining Nvidia, Broadcom and Micron. Intel and Qualcomm rose 12.1 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively.

Matthew Bryson, an analyst at Wedbush, said Intel and AMD are the only two manufacturers of the physical computing hardware that powers AI agents, explaining why investors are focusing on CPU makers as essential players in the AI ecosystem.

Investor sentiment also got a lift from signs that major companies are not pulling back on AI-related spending, even amid recent debate over whether the pace of AI investment should slow.

Falling oil prices and Treasury yields added further support to equities. Crude oil fell for a fourth consecutive trading session as expectations grew that the US-Iran standoff could find a diplomatic resolution ahead of the UN General Assembly.

West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery settled down 4.5 percent at $95.78 a barrel. Brent crude for November delivery fell 3.4 percent to $100.34 a barrel.

As easing oil prices reduced inflation concerns, US Treasury yields — which had surged recently — also pulled back. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 2 basis points to 4.972 percent, while the 30-year yield stood at 5.305 percent.

"If you just look at those two factors — oil prices and the 10-year Treasury yield — the market has shifted from headwinds to tailwinds in the near term," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth.


moon@heraldcorp.com