Market Close: Stocks Higher as Chipmakers Rally and Oil Pulls Back • 10/27/26

0:01CNBC Business News Update. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Wall Street opens Wednesday morning after a winning Tuesday for the major averages. There was a chip stock rally as well. The Dow was up 15 points. Caterpillar shares led it higher. They were up 3%. The S &P 500 index was up 45 points. That was a half percent. The Nasdaq, well, a chip rally helped that index on Tuesday. up 308 points, more than 1%. Chipmakers like Cerebris up 10%. Broadcom up 4%. AMD up 5 % most in the green. The Fed expected to hold the interest rates steady when it makes a post-meeting announcement Wednesday afternoon. Investors are watching interest rates.

0:47Investors are focused, though, on earnings reports. Companies from Royal Caribbean Cruises to Coca-Cola and UPS all saying they're seeing steady consumer spending, even with high inflation, high fuel prices and interest rates, raising concerns about slower consumer spending during the third quarter. We're in the busiest week of earnings season right now. Some investors are watching the earnings and getting a little cautious on stocks. But when I think about S &P in general, if you look at earnings and the equity risk premium you're getting, essentially you can get 5 % in bonds or you can get an extra a quarter of a point in yield in equities.

1:23Like, why would you gamble on, you know, that 0.25? Like, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. At this point in the cycle, I'd be looking for additional ways to protect my portfolio. That's Fortress chief strategist Elizabeth Burton on CNBC. Boeing shares tanked more than 10 percent on Tuesday after some commentary on the earnings call. Here's more from CNBC's Carl Quintanilla. Management makes some comments on the earnings call about the pace of 737 max production. We talked with Kelly Ortberg. Our Philobo asked about when Ortberg expected to get to 47 max planes a month and why the pace of production was taking longer than expected.

1:59We're working on that. We're trying to stabilize. I know everybody wants us to go faster, but we're going to do it right. Make sure that the production system is stable. We're delivering high quality, safe aircraft. And so I expect that stabilization period will last the balance of this year into early next year. Boeing's pacing for the worst day since the tariff announcements in April of 25. Consumer confidence came in the highest since June. Here's CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Liesman. I'm not saying the consumer has gotten all of a sudden very happy here, but certainly happier than they previously were.

2:33Consumer confidence coming in at 91.7 versus a consensus of 81. As mortgage rates went up in September, However, sales of newly built homes fell. Down 5.3 % year over year. This count is based on signed contracts. So people out shopping in September when, of course, we all know mortgage rates shot up. We started the month around 6.8 % on the 30-year fix and went all the way up to 7.5%. That really hit the buyers out there. That's CNBC's Diana Olick. Oil prices pulled back a bit on Monday. U.S. crude back below$100 a barrel on reports Iranian officials were talking about conditions for ending the U.S.

3:14war. On Wednesday's watch list, the earnings parade continues. We get numbers from Airbus, Biogen, Boston Scientific, GSK, GE Healthcare, Google Parade, Alphabet, FedEx, Ford, Microsoft, and Chipotle. I'm Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. From gas prices to housing prices, from government spending to consumer spending, from the AI boom to the data center backlash. How will this election hit your pocketbook and your portfolio? Continuing coverage, the economy election, CNBC. Hey, Fidelity, can I get a second opinion on stocks in the Fidelity app?

3:51Jessica Ettinger: With Fidelity, it's easy to get an outside opinion from independent experts in a single score. And then? When you're ready, trade US stocks and ETFs with no commissions. That's right. I am always right. We'll see you next time.