Market Review: September 28, 2026

Closing Recap

Monday, September 28, 2026

New day, same story as a surge in Treasury yields and energy prices pressure Wall Street sentiment, sending major averages and precious metals lower with no progress over the weekend between the U.S. and Iran. Markets remain on edge heading into October and mid-term elections in November while expectations are growing for additional interest rate hikes by the Fed (potentially in October) as inflation fears grow. Oil prices climbed but ended off their worst levels, while the concerns of AI are also not going away, pressuring tech/AI/semi stocks after reports this weekend that OpenAI is pausing training of its latest models after its agents went wandering around government websites and did more than they were asked. Market breadth and internals were poor despite major averages not falling to sharply as the Nasdaq with only 50 new 52-week highs vs 461 new 52-week lows today while the NYSE records 16 new 52-week highs vs. 422 new 52 week lows. NYSE breadth was more than 2-1 decliners favoring advancers while 8 of 11 S&P sectors were in the “red”. In deal news, the US and China announce a “30-for-30” trade deal, with each country cutting tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods. China’s list covers 1,619 categories of American products, while the US list contains 77 categories of Chinese goods. China has also committed to importing at least 10 million metric tonnes of US coal in 2027 and 2028. The S&P 500 (SPX) was stuck around the 7,700 level most of the day.

• December gold tumbles -$152.80 or -3.54%, to settle at $4,168.40 an ounce while December Silver falls -$3.08, or -4.76%, to settle at $61.72 an ounce in another brutal pullback for precious metals. Gold traded to a more than seven-week low, as rising oil prices stoked inflation concerns and bolstered bets on tighter monetary policy, while a higher dollar and Treasury yields created further headwinds for the metal.

• Restaurant sector: BROS Reiterate Buy and $60 PT at Davidson as view -26% pullback over the past month as a highly attractive entry point; says while investor concerns remain centered on intensifying competition, QSR Beverage expansion, and the lap of last year’s breakfast rollout, third party CC data and DADA’s store checks suggest underlying traffic remains healthy. SG was upgraded to Overweight and $11 tgt at Wells Fargo saying while the past 6 quarters have been marked by a series of operational & demand-related challenges, mgmt delivered a constructive message last week.

• Hotel REITs: Raymond James reiterated their bullish outlook for the lodging REITs given the continued RevPAR strength in 3Q, and expectations for material increases to full-year 2026 guidance as we get 3Q earnings. Our 3Q26, full-year 2026, and 2027 estimates are all moving higher. They are making two ratings changes — upgrading PK to Strong Buy and downgrading RLJ to Market Perform.
• Marine sector (BC, MBUU, MCFT): Truist said United States powerboat retail volumes were likely down low- to mid-teens % y/y in August following future revisions and decelerated from July’s revised -8.7% reading: Our estimated range is based on the initial -17.6% y/y August result for units sold and our assumption of a positive LSD-MSD% revision to this initial result

• Industrials sector: MOD shares tumbled (dragging shares of VRT, EME, FIX, others) after comments about margins as sell-side webcast.
• Defense sector: shares of BA decline after the WSJ reported the company has identified a 737 Max software glitch that could cause an automated navigation feature to fail, prompting concerns about a potential safety risk while planes are landing. It emerged from a cockpit software update and can occur when flight crews alter their planned flight path following a missed approach.
• Space sector: SPCX shares rallied behind positive Wall Street analyst comments (DBAB, Evercore) while the company’s Starship rocket lifted off from Texas and reached orbit for the first time, with one of its engines down, making a risky bid to deploy its first batch of Starlink satellites.
• Metals & Mining sector: another rough day for gold and silver miners (AG, B, CDE, HL, NEM, AEM, PAAS, WPM) as surging treasury yield and US dollar weigh on metals prices; GFI shares also fell after Northern Star Resources (NESRF) rejected Gold Fields’ $27B takeover proposal, saying the offer materially undervalued the Australian gold miner. Gold Fields proposed acquiring Northern Star through a combination of 0.3125 Gold Fields shares and A$7.25 in cash. President Trump announced a Minnesota company’s plan to build a $15 billion steel mill in Iowa.
• Chemical sector: German chemicals maker Evonik (EVKIY) has rejected a takeover offer of about €22.15 per share from larger peer BASF (BASFY) as too low, thee Financial Times had earlier reported. BASF, which said on Friday it had proposed a potential acquisition of Evonik, on Monday declined to comment on the size of the offer.

• REIT Sector: BRX is teaming up with investment management firm Everview Partners to acquire a set of shopping centers anchored by grocery stores in a deal valued at $2.34B. Under the deal for Slate Grocery REIT, Brixmor would acquire a portfolio of 23 grocery-anchored shopping centers for $636M.
• Insurance sector: RGA was upgraded to Overweight at Morgan Stanley saying ongoing medical advances, boosted by AI, should have a notable impact to life insurers and asset managers and create a structural earnings benefit to Reinsurance longer term as about 65% of the company’s biometric exposure is tied to mortality risk in some fashion. HIG Hartford Fire Insurance Company and certain of its affiliates and National Indemnity Company (NICO) agreed to terminate their existing aggregate excess of loss reinsurance agreement, which provided asbestos and environmental adverse development cover reinsurance since December 31, 2016

• MIRM said its experimental hepatitis drug reduced levels of the virus in patients, meeting the main goal of a late-stage study. Mirum was testing brelovitug, an experimental monoclonal antibody that binds to the hepatitis B surface antigen, a protein found on the surface of the virus
• MNOV shares slipped after saying its experimental oral drug MN-001 lowered blood fats in a mid-stage trial involving 40 patients with fatty liver disease, high triglycerides and type 2 diabetes. After 24 weeks, triglycerides fell about 22% with the drug versus about 7% with placebo, but the difference was not statistically significant
• MRK said it paid $400 million upfront to China’s SciBrunch Therapeutics, for global license rights to a preclinical cancer drug that targets tumors with KRAS G12D mutations. The deal is valued at $2.13 billion if all future milestones are achieved.
• NVO is increasingly marketing its GLP-1 drugs less as treatments for a chronic disease and more as consumer products for people who simply want to lose weight – STAT news.
• In vaccine news, a federal judge in Delaware on Monday rejected PFE, BNTX and MRNA’s requests to dismiss patent lawsuits filed against them by Bayer’s Monsanto unit over the Messenger RNA technology used in their COVID-19 vaccines.

• Semiconductors: NVDA announces a $150B share repurchase authorization increase, boosting total remaining buyback capacity to $235B through FY28 and underscoring confidence in the long-term AI opportunity; the company also unveiled the Nvidia Open Agent Safety Platform, a software framework aimed at reducing risks associated with autonomous AI agents; also reports China is considering allowing select domestic firms – including ByteDance and BABA – to purchase Nvidia’s RTX Pro 5500 workstation chips
• Gaming software sector: RBLX shares declined after being downgraded to Underperform at Jefferies saying the stock’s rally post the Q2 results reflects an overly optimistic view of Roblox’s 12 month bookings trajectory, and believes Roblox’s improvement in U.S./Canada user and bookings growth will be longer and more costly.
• Software sector news: MDB shares fell after CEO CJ Desai steps down, Dev Ittycheria named interim CEO; Desai is leaving to pursue a senior role at META. MongoDB has begun a search for a permanent CEO and retained an executive search firm. SNOW announces proposed private placement of $3.5B of 0.00% convertible Senior notes; net proceeds to fund capped calls, repurchase 2027 notes, and general corporate purposes. A Friday filing disclosed that Larry Ellison increased the number of pledged ORCL shares backing personal loans to 413M from 346M previously
• Software rating changes: DA Davidson downgraded four names in the software space, cutting PATH to Underperform with $10 tgt after attended UiPath Fusion and the accompanying Investor Day which clarified PATH’s strategic Vision noting customer and partner feedback was mixed with push back on Ai pricing. MANH downgraded to Neutral noting shares +70% from lows in April vs IGV +42%, the stock trade almost in-line with 20%+ growth peers at 29x ’27 FCF. BL downgraded to Underperform given expectations for incremental competition from Frontier Labs to remain a headwind. Lastly, PEGA downgraded to Neutral from Buy given expectations that recent competition from Frontier model providers will continue to limit upside to PEGA numbers near term.
• Quantum sector: IONQ Initiated at Buy and $60 PT at Bank America, the largest public pure-play Quantum company by revenue, with a Buy rating and $60 PO, supported by its Semiconductor-enabled path to scaling qubit count, broad customer Engagement and exposure across Quantum Computing, communications and sensing