Market Close: S&P 500 Up For 3rd Day, SpaceX Drives AI Trade, AT&T Slips 10-21-2026

0:02I'm Peter Schacknow's CNBC. Although the major averages finished well off their best levels of the session, stocks were higher across the board, helped by steady oil prices and a resurgence of optimism regarding artificial intelligence stocks. The Dow jumped 361 points to close at 52 ,857. The S &P 500 added 45 points or six-tenths of a percent. The Nasdaq, 1.1 % higher, or 278 points. That AI-related boost came largely from SpaceX, which reported its first quarterly profit since going public amid upbeat prospects for the company's terrestrial data centers. What I think got people so excited is the ability to monetize their terrestrial capacity at a pretty high value.

0:46And they were talking before$30 to$50 per watt, which is like some of the short-term deals we've seen already with Anthropic and Google. And they believe they can continue to get that, if not more, which made it economically attractive for them to do a terrestrial build-out. That's Bernstein Aerospace and Defense Analyst Doug Harnett. SpaceX finished the day up nearly 8 percent. The biggest loser in the S &P 500 was AT &T, down 6.5 percent despite better-than-expected earnings. Investors were focused on tepid growth in wireless services and worries that SpaceX might become a formidable competitor after it recently bought up a significant amount of wireless spectrum.

1:26Netflix was also one of the biggest losers in the S &P 500 on a weaker-than-expected outlook for the streaming services and revenue. Veteran media executive Tom Rogers says the focus is on Netflix's viewer engagement efforts. They saw that their growth in terms of engaging viewers was slowing, So they try to acquire premium programming with the Warner Library and HBO. That failed. So they still have the biggest entertainment budget around. Others have comparable budgets, but others have a huge allocation of that to sports. And their share of engagement was declining and YouTube was going through the roof.

2:02Netflix finished the day down more than 5%. Peter Schachnow, CNBC. This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, provides an information-packed daily market preview on stock updates, U.S. and global economic news, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash marketupdatepodcast, or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.