Nasdaq sets a record while the 10-year yield sits near 5.31%

The Nasdaq Composite and Nvidia both closed at record highs on Monday, and the 10-year Treasury yield ended the day near 5.31%, within sight of its highest level since 2002. Stocks are pricing in a Fed that stops raising rates; the bond market and Monday’s ISM services prices reading are not.

Records in stocks, 24-year highs in yields

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.05% to a record close of 27,477.31, per TheStreet. The S&P 500 added about 0.7% and the Dow about 0.2%, per Yahoo Finance. In our feed, the S&P 500 fund SPY rose 0.67%, the Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ 0.88%, the small-cap fund IWM 0.66% and the Dow fund DIA 0.20%.

Nvidia (NVDA) rose 2.12% to $238.90, its first record close since May, per Yahoo Finance. It traded as high as $240.10 during the session and was the busiest stock in our feed, with 126.6 million shares changing hands.

The bond market told a different story. The ISM services index for September came in at 54.9, down from 55.4 in August, but its prices-paid measure rose to 74.0 from 72.6, the highest reading since July 2022, per the ISM report. The 10-year Treasury yield rose about 3 basis points to 5.31%, per Yahoo Finance, against last Thursday’s 24-year high of 5.34%. The long-dated Treasury fund TLT, which falls when long-term yields rise, slipped 0.48% in our feed.

The Fed raised rates in September and meets next on October 27-28. After Friday’s weak jobs report, the prediction market Polymarket put the chance of another increase at that meeting at about 19.5%, per The Rio Times. A prices index at a four-year high is the kind of data that argues the other way, which is why Monday’s record close and Monday’s yield move are worth reading together.

Brazil’s election sends its fintechs surging in New York

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro took 47.03% of the valid vote in Sunday’s first round of Brazil’s presidential election, ahead of President Lula at 45.16%, per Seeking Alpha. The runoff is October 25. Investors read the result as a shift toward more market-friendly policy, and Brazil’s benchmark index closed at a record high, per Reuters, after gaining more than 8% while the real strengthened more than 4% against the dollar, per Seeking Alpha.

The move dominated our movers feed. XP (XP) rose 30.99% to $28.18, PagSeguro (PAGS) 21.52%, StoneCo (STNE) 20.79%, Inter & Co (INTR) 19.38% and Nu Holdings (NU) 13.18% to $15.20. Nu was the heaviest-traded name on the list by a wide margin. Fast-food operator Arcos Dorados (ARCO), which runs McDonald’s restaurants in Latin America, rose 14.10%. The Brazil fund EWZ gained 13%, per Benzinga.

These are election-night moves on a first-round result. The second round is three weeks away.

PTC (PTC) was the biggest gainer in our movers feed, up 33.46% to $192.26 on 29.6 million shares, after Schneider Electric agreed to buy the industrial software company for $205 a share in cash, per MarketScreener. The price is a 42.3% premium to Friday’s close, and the companies expect the deal to close by the third quarter of 2027, pending shareholder and regulatory approval, per GuruFocus. The stock closed about $13 below the offer price.

Intel (INTC) fell 2.63% to $116.19 after Elon Musk confirmed that Taiwan Semiconductor is in early talks to join his Terafab chip-manufacturing venture in Texas, per Benzinga. Intel joined Terafab earlier this year and is expected to supply its next-generation 14A process, so a second foundry at the table reads as competition for that work. The stock opened at $115.34, its low for the day was $115.31, and it recovered part of the early drop. Qualcomm (QCOM) fell 2.21% to $180.79 despite announcing a multiyear patent cross-license with Huawei, per Yahoo Finance. Arm (ARM) lost 1.49% and Micron (MU) 1.02%. The chip trade was not uniform: Nvidia set its record and AMD slipped just 0.34%.

Merck (MRK) was the weakest of the 100 names in our feed, down 3.30% to $139.54, and it traded as low as $138.80. We could not confirm a company-specific reason; the company reports third-quarter results on October 29, per ad-hoc-news. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) fell 1.21% and Pfizer (PFE) 1.40%, though the health-care fund XLV still rose 0.72% on the strength of Thermo Fisher (TMO), up 3.35% to $676.76 after JPMorgan added it to its October list of favored stocks, per ad-hoc-news, and Abbott (ABT), up 2.67%.

Payments rallied together; vaccine makers jumped on an unconfirmed story

Shopify (SHOP) rose 5.76% to $160.11, the largest gain among the 100 stocks and funds we track. TradingKey attributed the move to integrations that let AI agents, including Meta’s Muse, complete purchases through Shopify Checkout and Shop Pay. Affirm (AFRM) gained 5.62% and PayPal (PYPL) 3.05%, in what 24/7 Wall St. described as a group move in buy-now-pay-later names. Block (SQ) rose 2.56%, Visa (V) 2.51%, Mastercard (MA) 2.23% and Coinbase (COIN) 2.85%.

Alibaba (BABA) rose 4.68% to $110.80. MarketBeat tied the gain to the weaker US payroll data lowering expectations for further Fed tightening; we found no company-specific news. Tesla (TSLA) added 2.20% to $378.73, extending Friday’s deliveries-driven rally.

In our feed, 68 of the 100 stocks and funds we track rose. Another 31 lost ground and one was unchanged.

Further down the market, Novavax (NVAX) rose 19.91% to $12.56, Emergent BioSolutions (EBS) 14.20%, Quidel (QDEL) 12.91%, Arcturus Therapeutics (ARCT) 12.75% and protective-equipment maker Alpha Pro Tech (APT) 13.73%, all in our movers feed. Stocktwits and Benzinga linked the group move to reports of a lab worker’s unexplained death at a Russian plague research institute. 24/7 Wall St. pointed instead to Sanofi carrying Novavax’s Nuvaxovid shot into the fall vaccination season. The first explanation fits the breadth of the move across biodefense and protective-equipment names better, but we could not confirm the underlying report from a primary source. Treat it as unverified.

Overnight

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.83% while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.83%, per The Rio Times. European indexes opened slightly lower: the DAX was down 0.23%, the FTSE 100 0.10% and the CAC 40 0.46%, per The Rio Times. German factory orders fell 10.6% in August from July, well below expectations, per FXStreet. The euro was near $1.12, and a TD strategist on CNBC flagged continued stress in French government bonds.

US stock futures edged higher early Tuesday, per CNBC. Pre-market volume in our feed is still too thin to read.

What to watch today

The August US trade balance at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists expect a deficit of about $102 billion, after $88.6 billion in July, per FXStreet.
New York Fed President John Williams speaks at 9:05 a.m. ET and Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman at 10:45 a.m. ET, per The Rio Times.
A 3-year Treasury note auction at 1:00 p.m. ET, per The Rio Times.
Earnings before the open from Lamb Weston, RPM International and Apogee Enterprises; Constellation Brands reports after the close, per TipRanks.
The 10-year Treasury yield, which ended Monday near 5.31% against last week’s high of 5.34%.
Later this week: the minutes of the Fed’s September meeting and the 10-year Treasury auction on Wednesday, PepsiCo’s results on Thursday and Delta Air Lines’ on Friday.

Not financial advice. iTrading Buddy summarizes publicly available market data and news; every figure above is sourced from the reporting available before the US open on the date shown. Verify anything you act on.