Mid-Morning Look: September 14, 2026

Mid-Morning Look

Monday, September 14, 2026

U.S. stock markets open lower as the same issues that plagued Wall Street last week (higher oil and rising Treasury yields) remain an issue to start the week, while adding a new wrinkle as weaker AI data plays hit tech stocks as AI leaders have called for a slower pace of development. The highlight of the week remains the FOMC policy meeting on Wednesday where expectations have grown for a 25 bps rate hike following stubbornly high inflation data (CPI, PPI) and surging energy prices with oil surging and diesel prices making new all-time highs daily. The tech space, specifically the semiconductor, data center, power related plays are seeing sharp declines this morning after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said this weekend that the progress of improving AI model capabilities should be slowed down, while OpenAI CEO Altman responded to Amodei’s essay on X saying he “agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier. In his own X post, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceXAI (previously xAI), wrote, “Dario is right.”

AI stocks absolutely crushed today after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei dropped a gloomy essay this weekend that rattled investor confidence across the entire semiconductor and AI infrastructure complex. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said this weekend, and was backed by comments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk as well saying that they must slow the pace at which they improve the capabilities of A.I. models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain. Altman followed Amodei original comment with one of his own overnight saying “There are two ways AI progress could go very badly, and that we must avoid. First, we could lose control of the future to AI. This is unacceptable; we are unapologetically on Team Humanity, and AI must always serve people. To ensure that, we need ways to ensure that alignment and safety techniques stay ahead of progress in model capabilities,” Altman said. “Second, we could end up in a world with too much concentration of power. If an extraordinarily powerful AI is used by one person or company to impress their worldview onto everyone else, the results could be extremely dystopian. Avoiding these two threats requires walking a narrow middle path; for example, one country could gain too much power. Another example is one lab ending up with too much power.”

Meanwhile inflation fears mount ahead of the FOMC policy meeting as Brent crude prices have jumped to $109 a barrel after Saudi Arabia shut a key oil pipeline as fighting in the Middle East escalates. Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline could remain largely offline for 3–5 weeks following last week’s drone attack, AP reports. The pipeline can carry up to 7M barrels per day to the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. Also the 10-year Treasury yield is at 4.97%, while the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates this week. Stocks are trying to bounce after falling last week where the Dow slid -1.6%, marking its biggest weekly loss since March and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite shed about -0.8% and -0.7%, respectively.

• Industrial sector: LII was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank saying while the shares now trade at a meaningful discount to history and MI/EE peers, sees limited scope for a near-term Re-rating until there is clearer evidence of a material US residential HVAC volume recovery. ELMT shares rose after saying one of its units won a ~$2B contract from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency which includes a guaranteed $150M commitment to supply tungsten for rebuilding the U.S. National Defense Stockpile, reducing dependence on China and Russia for critical minerals. Citigroup named CAT an “upside 90-day catalyst watch” as believes data center buildout concerns are overblown while yellow iron used prices are moving higher.
• Cable, Towers & Telecom: CCI was downgraded to Underweight at JP Morgan saying the company is now a standalone macro Tower company, but industry activity has stayed low and does not seem to be improving in the near term. The firm looks for Crown Castle’s organic Tower revenue growth to be just 3.0% over the next few years given its low level of new leasing activity of 1.8%, churn of 1.4% and escalators of 2.6%. CHTR was downgraded to Underperform from Peer Perform at Wolfe Research saying they believe broadband industry dynamics look worse in 2027 and 2028 due to exploding satellite capacity and fiber pricing; cuts estimates.

• BNTX +2%; said its experimental drug gotistobart nearly doubled the median survival of patients with an aggressive form of lung cancer compared to chemo. Patients treated with gotistobart lived for a median 18.5 months, compared with 10 months for those given the standard-of-care chemotherapy
• CRBP +5%; after saying its experimental obesity drug helped patients lose avg 5of body weight over 12 weeks in early-stage study; nearly half of patients on highest 60 mg dose lost at least 5% body weight, 6.7% lost more than 7.5%; said the drug CRB-913 caused fewer stomach-related side effects, like nausea, vomiting, than in published studies of oral GLP-1 obesity drugs.
• ELMT +30%; after saying one of its units won a ~$2B contract from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency which includes a guaranteed $150M commitment to supply tungsten for rebuilding the U.S. National Defense Stockpile, reducing dependence on China and Russia for critical minerals.
• RUM +15%; after The Information reported on Sunday that Anthropic had signed a computing deal with RUM Group, that hosts U.S. President Trump’s Truth Social platform. RUM said on August 24 that it had signed a deal worth $13.7B with a U.S.-based cloud customer, without unveiling the name.
• SMMT +6%; said ivonescimab significantly extended survival compared with MRK’s Keytruda in a late-stage lung cancer trial conducted by its partner Akeso in China. Ivonescimab reduced the risk of death by 27% compared with Keytruda as Median overall survival reached 30.8 months for patients receiving ivonescimab, compared with 22.6 months for the Keytruda group.

• GEV -6%; after GLJ Research initiated GEV at a new sell and $470 PT (vs today open price $957) as acknowledges that Ai needs power, but doesn’t believe that justifies shares trading at 26 times estimated 2027 earnings before EBITDA (also down on broader Ai concerns).
• GLW -10%; after announced it entered into an equity distribution agreement to sell up to $2B in shares via an “at the market” equity offering program; opticals also broadly lower (AAOI, CIEN, LITE, COHR and others declined due in part to concerns about slowing artificial intelligence spending.
• NVDA -3%; as shares of semis, data centers, power and other key players in the AI race come under pressure after leaders of the biggest AI companies warned of risks from rapid development as Anthropic CEO Amodei called on AI companies to slow the rate which they advance model capabilities