Market Close: Stocks Higher, S&P 500 and Nasdaq at Records, Skydance Is Born • 10/6/26

0:00C-NBC Business News Update. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Wall Street opens Wednesday morning after a record-setting Tuesday. The S &P 500 index and the Nasdaq each closing at new record highs as Treasury yields pulled back. The rate on the 10-year had hit a 24-year high of 5.4 % on Monday, back down around 5.25 % on Tuesday. The Dow was up 253 points, about a half a percent. Cisco shares led it higher. They were up 4.5%. The S &P 500 index closed above 7 ,800 for the very first time at 78.18. It was up 44 points. And the Nasdaq was up 122 points, about a half a percent, closing at 27 ,599. Companies whose shares at fresh record highs on Tuesday include NVIDIA, AMD, and Palo Alto Networks.

0:58Here's CNBC's Mike Santoli. Everything is uneven. You know, even the rally days, they're not particularly emphatic or exciting. I do think it's certainly a net positive. You had those stabilizers in the market in the AI trade, Broadcom, and that did do their job. Sentiment has definitely moderated. But banks down again, small caps down again. And I don't think that investors are going to believe that the financial condition tightening of higher yields and rising credit spreads are behind us. And the Carson Group's Ryan Dietrich is optimistic. October is usually pretty strong in a midterm year.

1:32The fourth quarter of a midterm year is like one of the best quarters of the four-year cycle. We caught our breath and now the market wants to go higher in this fourth quarter. Skydance is born. The Paramount Skydance purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery is done. The new media company has that one name, Skydance, ticker symbol SKYD. Shares were down about 4 % Tuesday. Here's CNBC's Julia Boorstin. Now comes the hard part for David Ellison and his new co-CEO Enon Kreese, the former CEO of Mattel. The big challenge is how they'll achieve their promised $6 billion in cost-cutting and synergies within three years, while also adhering to the company's commitment to state attorneys general to produce and distribute more content, including 30 theatrical releases a year.

2:15A key concern for investors is how they'll pay down the nearly$80 billion in debt without weakening the value of the assets they've acquired, including HBO, Warner Brothers, a lot of sports rights, which all require meaningful investment to compete. My sources in the industry say employees are bracing for massive layoffs. The U.S. economy right now is being called two-prong, being held up by two things, consumer spending, mostly by wealthier people and AI spending as companies plow money into their capital expenditures. High-end spending because people are spending their portfolios. We'll see how long that lasts.

2:53And then we have the AI CapEx. And that's the vitality in the economy right now. It's a two-pronged economy. That's Rosenberg Research's David Rosenberg on CNBC with a little warning. And he's here with CNBC's Carl Quintanilla. If one of those prongs ends up falling by the wayside, you got nothing left to pick up the support. You're right. We're being held up by two very powerful stilts, but stilts nonetheless. Airlines want flyers with money, and British Airways is planning to put the biggest business class ever on its Airbus A380 jumbo jets at 106 seats. On Wednesday's watch list, Microsoft holds its first major Windows event in two years.

3:34We get the latest on consumer credit, and the Fed releases its minutes from its last meeting. Jessica Edinger, 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? with fidelity it's easy to get an outside opinion from independent experts in a single score and then when you're ready trade u.s stocks and etfs with no commissions that's right i am always right investing involves risk including risk of loss zero dollar commission does not apply to customers designated by fidelity as a professional equity trader a limited number of etfs are subject to a service fee of 100 see details at fidelity.com slash commissions fidelity brokerage services This is LSE, member NYSE SIPC.