Market Review: September 14, 2026

Closing Recap

Monday, September 14, 2026

U.S. stocks finish lower, but well off their worst levels with AI names/semis hitting the Nasdaq the hardest after Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceXAI leaders all suggested it would be prudent to slow the rate at which they advance model capabilities amid mounting fears of misuse of artificial intelligence. The comments sunk shares of semis, data centers, neoclouds, opticals and power stocks after the leaders of the biggest AI companies warned of risks from rapid development. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made the initial comment while both Elon Musk, who runs xAI, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said they agree with Amodei. Amodei wrote that in six to 12 months, AI agents “could be capable of taking over the entire internet potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.” While the comments hit some sector, other tech sectors such as software rallied, specifically cyber names (CRWD, PANW, ZS, OKTA, CHKP) on the concerns. Other sector leaders included Healthcare (XLV), Communications (XLC) and Consumer Stales (XLP).  

Stocks pared losses late morning as President Trump (who was VERY busy on Truth Social media platform) said “The failing Nation of Iran wants to make a deal, quickly and badly. I will determine whether or not the U.S.A. will choose to engage – The concept of which we are open to. The comments were one of many topics he discussed today including diesel prices and the recent Ai concerns raised by AI lab leaders this weekend. Iran State-linked Tasnim News later rejected Trump’s claim that Tehran wants a quick deal with Washington. Oil prices finished higher by off the highs while Treasury yields slipped for the first time in 5 days after jumping earlier; precious metals fell and the dollar bounced.

Huge week for central banks: on Wednesday, The Fed decision promises considerably more intrigue than might be suggested by market pricing on a roughly 85% likelihood for a hike on Wednesday. Market pricing has moved to this level following Chairman Warsh’s acknowledgement at Jackson Hole that he would not accept strong price pressures and the slightly firmer readings for both CPI and PPI. Still, the political, geopolitical and economic backdrop present considerable uncertainty. The Bank of England is expected to hold at 3.75% on Thursday, which comes despite markets pricing ~100bps of tightening over the next year. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) meets on Friday, and a 25bps hike seems locked in. Media reports have indicated the BOJ plans to hike in response to upside inflation risks, while leaving open the scope for accelerating the tightening pace thereafter.

FOMC Policy on Wednesday, markets imply 90% chance of a hike: 1) Goldman Sachs today said they expect a 25bp September FOMC hike as markets are pricing nearly a 90% chance of a hike after Friday’s August CPI,

high enough that the FOMC will likely want to avoid the market reaction that would likely follow from remaining on hold. Goldman sees limited fundamental justification for tightening, as it believes the inflation overshoot reflects mostly one-off factors, core PCE has improved, inflation expectations remain anchored, and the economy is not overheated. 2) UBS said they continue to expect the FOMC to vote 10-2 to raise interest rates at the September FOMC meeting. UBS expects that Governor Waller and Governor Bowman dissent in favor of remaining on hold. UBS expects the assumptions of appropriate policy to be split on the issue of whether one or two 0.25 pp rate hikes would be appropriate this year, but risks tilt toward two.

Interesting stats: This week is triple witching option expiration, @Bluekurtic noted on X, “Spooky September may still have one more trick up its sleeve. Friday is triple witching, with over $2 trillion in delta notional options set to expire. Since 2012, the S&P 500 $SPX was negative on event day 12 of 14 times. Can we skip this month already?”

• For Diesel prices, President Trump declares Ukraine and Russia have both agreed not to hit energy targets, adding the diesel spike is “mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran.” Note diesel prices hit fresh all time highs this morning.
• December gold falls -$57.00, or -1.29%, to settle at $4,351.90 an ounce, while December silver slid -$1.05, or -1.61%, to settle at $64.14 an ounce. Treasury yields jumped, and the dollar advanced ahead of FOMC policy meeting Wednesday where expectations have grown for a rate hike. Metals end lower, but far better than earlier losses.

• Food & Beverage sector: MKC was downgraded from Buy to Hold at TD Cowen saying while they maintain a positive view on the strategic rationale for McCormick’s merger with UL Foods, it expects the combined business to struggle to achieve the 2-4% organic growth rate management initially estimated owing to weak execution in their US retail businesses and a choppy backdrop.
• Auto sector: STLA was downgraded to Underweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley and cut tgt to $5.20 from $8 saying the product pipeline is lagging behind peers, implying limited capacity to reduce investments to adapt to lower cash generation. TSLA has reclaimed more than half of the U.S. electric-vehicle market as traditional automakers scale back their money-losing EV operations. Tesla captured 52% of U.S. EV sales through August, up from 43% a year earlier.

• 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.
• Aerospace sector: Melius downgraded five commercial aviation names on slowing growth including GE (tgt to $350 from $432), HEI (tgt to $350 from $402), HONA (tgt to $190 from $216), TDG (tgt to $1,331 from $1,477) and WWD (tgt to $388 from $458) to Hold from Buy. The commercial aviation aftermarket will see slowing sales after several years of robust growth, and the firm sees aftermarket growth slowing to high-single-digits percent next year vs. low-teens growth bulls might be expecting.
• Defense sector: ONDS has acquired GATE Technologies, an Israeli-based defense technology company specializing in Electronic Safe & Arm Devices for $205M, the majority of which is payable in cash, plus a working capital adjustment and up to $185M of performance-based earn-out consideration.
• Transport sector: HUBG said consolidated operating revenue for 1H’26 expected at $1.70-$1.80B, estimates fy2026 operating revenue $3.6-$3.80B, capital expenditures $40-$50M and anticipates operating loss for h1 2026 before one-time charges.

• Payments sector: shares of MA, Visa (V) pulled back this afternoon after Sky news reported the UK Payments Delivery Company will this week launch a process to raise in the region of £50M to fund the development of a new domestic infrastructure player.
• In crypto sector, the Senate is set to hold a key procedural vote Tuesday on the Clarity Act, which would establish a new regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. The measure needs Democratic support to overcome a filibuster, with ethics restrictions involving President Donald Trump’s crypto interests among the major sticking points.
• Financial services: Anthropic is launching Claude for Financial Advisors, a suite of AI-powered tools that it hopes will drum up business in the wealth management sector. The Claude for Financial Advisors plugin, which bundles advisor skills and connectors into a single install, works with BLK, SCHW, Addepar, Envestnet, iCapital, Orion, Wealthbox, Wealth.com and Zocks.

• BNTX said its experimental drug gotistobart nearly doubled the median survival of patients with an aggressive form of lung cancer compared to chemotherapy. Patients treated with gotistobart lived for a median 18.5 months, compared with 10 months for those given the standard-of-care chemotherapy.
• CRBP said 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.
• DFTX said its experimental LSD-based anxiety disorder drug, DT120, met the main goal and all key secondary goals in a late-stage study in generalized anxiety disorder; the co said a single 100-microgram dose delivered a 5.1-point placebo-adjusted improvement on the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale at 12 weeks showing improvement as early as day 2, with benefits sustained through Week 12.
• GSK reported that its investigational lung cancer therapy Jideytro met its primary endpoint, demonstrating complete or partial tumor shrinkage in 94% of trial participants. In a separate late-stage study, GSK announced that Ris-Rez, a small cell lung cancer drug licensed from Hansoh Pharma, reduced the risk of death by 54% compared to standard chemo in patients with relapsed disease.
• SRRK said late Friday the FDA approved isembyld, the company’s treatment for spinal muscular atrophy. Isembyld was approved for adults and children ages 2 and older who are already receiving a treatment targeting survival motor neuron 2, or SMN2.
• SMMT 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 among previously untreated patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer whose tumors expressed PD-L1. Median overall survival reached 30.8 months for patients receiving ivonescimab, compared with 22.6 months for the Keytruda group
• Healthcare Services: GEHC is in talks over a possible $1B deal to buy radiopharmaceutical developer Sofie Biosciences, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.
• Ortho sector: JNJ shares active after Bloomberg reported late Friday that APO is in talks to acquire Co’s orthopedics unit in a deal that could value it at nearly $20B

• Optical sector: shares of AAOI, CIEN, LITE, COHR and others declined due in part to concerns about slowing artificial intelligence spending after AI CEO’s express concern of speed of AI learnings and slowing growth while shares of GLW also weak after announced it entered into an equity distribution agreement to sell up to $2B in shares via an “at the market” equity offering program.
• IT Services & Consulting sector: ACN was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Wells Fargo ahead of Q4 results and upcoming investor day saying they don’t see either as positive catalysts, and says ongoing ME headwinds could make F27 CC organic growth acceleration challenging. HPE was downgraded from Outperform to In Line at Evercore, reflective of the recent appreciation in shares, with the stock closing at $62.08 on Friday (9/11) up +158.5% YTD (vs. S&P 500 up 11.9%).
• Gaming software sector: RBLX shares strong as Wells Fargo says after the company’s developers conference that they see positive inflection in business and believe recent improvements in engagement likely to be sustained. Raise bookings and EBITDA estimates well above street for 3Q and beyond and raised tgt to $64 from $46.
• Software sector: ORCL co-founder Larry Ellison has axed plans to sell up to $7.5B worth of shares in an about-face as his company comes under pressure over its all-in bet on Ai. Ellison had elected not to sell any Oracle stock after disclosures the previous day showed he planned to sell as many as 50M shares by the end of October. Security software names CRWD, PANW, QLYS, CHKP, OKTA, ZS seeing the biggest moves in software today on the AI concerns as AI means more agents and more agents means more identities, endpoints and attack surfaces.

• Media & Internet sector: RUM shares rose after The Information reported on Sunday that Anthropic had signed a computing deal with RUM Group, that hosts U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform. RUM said on August 24 that it had signed a deal worth $13.7 billion with a U.S.-based cloud customer, without unveiling the name. Under the deal, the customer will get access to GPUs and related services from RUM Group’s Georgia site.