The Closing Bell
Chips ripped, bonds sold off, and the S&P slipped into a quad-witching close that left the index barely lower even as money rotated hard toward semiconductors and away from bonds and small caps.
Yields back above 5% put the brakes on the broader tape.
The S&P 500 SPDR (SPY) closed off 0.1% at $761.61 as Treasuries sold off, with the 20-year ETF (TLT) down 0.7% on the day. Fed's Schmid struck a steady tone, calling the economy "strong, growing" and the policy stance "fairly normalized," while Industrial Production came in at 1.4% year over year and the Leading Index slipped 0.1%, a mixed read that did little to settle the rates debate. Overseas, the Bank of Japan hiked to a 31-year high to fight inflation, sending the yen lower and dragging U.S.-listed Japanese banks (MUFG, SMFG, MFG) down on spillover concerns. With today's session marking triple/quad witching, expiration-related flows likely amplified the crosscurrents into the bell.
Chips carried the Nasdaq.
The Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) added 0.6% while the Russell 2000 (IWM) lagged, down 0.5%, underscoring a mega-cap, AI-adjacent bid. Applied Materials (AMAT) surged 6.6% and Micron (MU) jumped 4.0% as reports surfaced that SK Hynix's subsidiary is weighing a U.S. NAND flash plant, lifting memory and equipment names across the board. Nvidia (NVDA) added 1.2%, and Amazon (AMZN) rose 1.0% as the AI infrastructure trade found fresh legs, with Brad Gerstner warning AI labs need a $180 billion revenue run rate to keep the Nvidia trade intact, and NScale's NYSE IPO filing (backed by Nvidia, Amazon and Alphabet as customers) reinforcing the data-center buildout narrative. Bitcoin topped $80,000 intraday even as CoinShares flagged a "difficult setup" into year-end.
Losers were concentrated in software, autos and industrial commodities.
Accenture (ACN) tumbled 4.8% after Guggenheim cut it to Neutral. Intuit (INTU) fell 3.2% despite Evercore and Mizuho reiterating bullish targets, a sign valuation concerns are overpowering the sell-side. Cybersecurity names (CrowdStrike, Okta, Palo Alto) slipped on reports hackers used Anthropic's Claude to probe OpenAI's code. Automakers (Ford, GM, Stellantis) fell on reports Detroit is pushing Trump to bar Chinese production in the U.S., while aluminum names (Alcoa, Century, Kaiser) and fertilizer stocks (CF, Mosaic, Nutrien) dropped on soft steelmaker guidance and easing tariff-driven premiums. Cooper Companies gained after JANA Partners pushed for a CEO search and asset sales, and Cameco firmed on reports its Westinghouse joint venture could be valued above $50 billion in a U.S. IPO.
After the bell and tomorrow:
Watch NScale's NYSE debut under "NSCL" and any follow-through in bitcoin and crypto proxies (Coinbase, Robinhood) after the CFTC's new crypto proposal. Rig counts ticked higher (595 vs. 591), a modest positive for energy services heading into next week.
Bottom line: chips and AI infrastructure are doing the market's heavy lifting while rising yields, a hawkish BOJ, and software downgrades cap the broader index on a volatile witching Friday.