The yield on 30-year Treasury bonds rose to 5.70%, the highest since 2002, ahead of the release later today of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s September policy meeting, when policymakers raised interest rates to combat inflation. <\/p>\n
Sentiment had turned more buoyant in markets this week as bullish earnings estimates have helped lift major indexes to all-time highs. But as Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi pointed out on Tuesday<\/a>, those records belie a highly concentrated market, where the index’s top three holdings (Nvidia (NVDA<\/a>), Apple (AAPL<\/a>), Microsoft (MSFT<\/a>)) account for roughly a fifth of the S&P 500. <\/p>\n Factors that have weighed on markets this year could still pose impediments. Brent crude oil futures (BZ=F<\/a>) remain above $100 per barrel amid the latest Houthi attacks<\/a> in the Middle East. Bond yields<\/a> retreated on Tuesday but are still hovering near multidecade highs. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, the Fed’s meeting minutes will provide clues as to whether the central bank’s rate hike in September represented a one-off or whether the Fed’s thinking indicates more rate hikes ahead. As of Tuesday, traders priced in roughly 20% odds of a rate hike at the Fed’s October meeting next week. <\/p>\n On the earnings docket, Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI<\/a>) and Applied Digital (APLD<\/a>) report results. <\/p>\n LIVE 6 updates<\/p>\n Oil prices rose on Wednesday amid increased attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and an incoming storm in the Gulf Coast region.<\/p>\n Brent crude (BZ=F<\/a>) rose to trade back above $101 per barrel while West Texas Intermediate crude (CL=F<\/a>) was close to $90 a barrel.<\/p>\n Despite increased shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks, UK officials have reported at least nine attacks in the critical waterway so far in October amid a continued US-Iran conflict.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a tropical storm <\/a>is nearing the Gulf coast, threatening to make landfall as a hurricane by Friday. Chevron said it is evacuating nonessential personnel<\/a> from its offshore platforms in the region.<\/p>\n Agentic AI is ushering in a CPU ‘renaissance’ <\/p>\n Yahoo Finance’s Hamza Shaban reports:<\/p>\n The agents have arrived. And so has the hardware that powers them.<\/p>\n Meta’s (META<\/a>) Muse and OpenAI’s (OPAI.PVT<\/a>) Dots have thrust sophisticated digital assistants at the front of their AI sales pitch. And in the same way that the race to train increasingly competent models has catapulted GPU makers to the top of the stock charts, the chipmakers sustaining AI agents are enjoying a “renaissance,” Citi analyst Atif Malik put it in a note to clients on Tuesday<\/a>, upgrading AMD’s price target.<\/p>\n The potential success of AI agents has forced a rethink of the CPU market. Malik wrote that the total market for CPUs should be expanded from $29 billion in 2025 to $300 billion in 2030, in the wake of Meta’s Muse debut.<\/p>\n Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n Constellation Brands stock falls despite Corona maker posting better-than-expected results <\/p>\n Constellation Brands (STZ<\/a>) stock fell 5% despite the Corona and Modelo beer maker beating Wall Street’s earnings expectations.<\/p>\n In the second quarter, Constellation Brands reported $2.63 billion in net sales, above analysts’ expectations of $2.54 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence consensus data. Adjusted earnings per share of $3.74 also topped estimates of $3.55.<\/p>\n Constellation Brands said that off-premise sales, which include beverages sold at grocery and convenience stores, declined, while on-premise sales at restaurants and bars grew.<\/p>\n The same trend held for the World Cup in June and July, where on-premise volumes were strong, but off-premise World Cup sales came in below industry expectations.<\/p>\n The company reaffirmed its full-year adjusted earnings per share forecast of $11.20-$11.90. It continues to see beer sales down 1% to up 1%, wine sales down 1% to up 1%, and enterprise sales down 1% to up 1%.<\/p>\n AI agents are going rogue, and the lawsuits are going to get messy <\/p>\n Yahoo Finance’s Hamza Shaban writes in today’s Morning Brief newsletter:<\/a><\/p>\n It’s a new fact of life that AI agents are bypassing their sandboxes<\/a> to get into places they aren’t supposed to. We’ve learned to stomach (or largely ignore) cyberattacks as part of the cost of doing business, or really, existing, while being connected to the internet.<\/p>\n But AI agents present a new dilemma. Rather than bad actors probing vulnerabilities, wielding whatever tools they can, the agents are the sophisticated products of some of the most influential and powerful tech companies in the world.<\/p>\n “Agents going rogue is the biggest risk today. Imagine an agent on your corporate network hacked or hijacked or it goes rogue,” Zscaler (ZS<\/a>) founder and CEO Jay Chaudhry said on Yahoo Finance’s Sozzi Unleashed<\/a>. “Don’t trust AI agents<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Every week, it seems, we’re seeing sheepish disclosures by OpenAI (OPAI.PVT<\/a>) and co. that its agents “accidentally” hacked something it shouldn’t have.<\/a><\/p>\n A society has to grapple with some element of crime. But what if those criminal acts are in part perpetuated by the supposedly upstanding corporations powering the S&P 500? While defense against rogue agents may feel futile, this is America, and we can always go on offense and throw the book.<\/p>\n![\"Ines](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/https:\/\/o.aolcdn.com\/images\/dims.jpeg\")
Oil prices climb above $100 on Strait of Hormuz attacks, Gulf storm threat <\/p>\n