U.S. markets trade mixed as investors await earnings catalysts

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U.S. markets trade mixed

Highlights

Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.37%, Nasdaq Composite up 0.51%, and S&P 500 up 0.15% as 10-year Treasury yield reaches 5.30%.
Intel shares fall 1.4% and TSMC rises 1.6% after Elon Musk confirms TSMC discussions for Terafab; Qualcomm drops 0.22% after licensing patents to Huawei.
Walmart, Amazon, and Target have launched major October promotions, raising questions about early holiday sales patterns and potential margin pressures.

Market moves and rate expectations

As reported by Cboe Global Markets, early trading shows a split performance across major U.S. benchmarks after Friday’s weaker-than-expected jobs report helped support sentiment.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 0.37%, while the Nasdaq Composite is up 0.51% and the S&P 500 Index is 0.15% higher. The 10-year Treasury yield stands at 5.30%, and WTI crude oil is down 1.64%, trading in the mid-$89-per-barrel range.

Markets are also watching expectations for the Federal Reserve’s next meeting on October 28. The CME FedWatch tool is assigning a 79.5% probability that the central bank leaves interest rates unchanged at 3.75% to 4.0%, though investors are looking to Wednesday’s release of minutes from the September meeting for firmer guidance after officials unanimously raised rates by 25 basis points.

Chip and retail names draw attention

Semiconductor stocks are also drawing focus after Elon Musk said on Saturday on X that discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. are underway on his Terafab semiconductor project in Texas. Musk later says TSMC would supplement Intel rather than replace it, but Intel shares are still down 1.4% while TSMC shares are up 1.6%.

Qualcomm is also in view after agreeing to license Huawei Technologies’ chipmaking patents, a move Bloomberg says helps validate Huawei’s new semiconductor architecture. Qualcomm shares are off 0.22%, while Huawei remains a privately held Chinese company with a testing lab in Plano, Texas.

In retail, Walmart, Amazon and Target are launching major October promotional events that could shape the early holiday spending pattern. Investors are weighing whether the campaigns pull demand forward from Black Friday and Cyber Monday or generate additional sales growth in October and the fourth quarter, although deeper discounts may also weigh on profit margins.

In our earlier coverage of Wall Street futures slipping, we noted that a retreat in chip and broader tech shares weighed on major indexes as investors assessed the Federal Reserve’s next policy steps. We also highlighted how elevated 10-year Treasury yields and near-$100 oil prices were shaping risk sentiment and keeping attention on interest-rate signals.

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