Market Midday: Stocks Down, Netflix Struggles, Gas Heads Toward $4.50 • 9/18/26

0:00See NBC Business News update. Market afternoon on this Friday. I'm Jessica Ettinger and the major averages are all in the red. Stocks falling as Treasury yields climb. The yield on the 10-year Treasury topping 5 % again this afternoon. The Dow down 230 points. IBM shares leading the Dow lower. They're down 3%. Disney down almost 2%. The S &P 500 index down 16 points. The Nasdaq is down 35 points. That Nasdaq is the only major index that's still in the green for the week. Microsoft publishing a code of conduct to help govern AI models. Its key message is that people matter more than AI. CNBC spoke with Microsoft CEO of AI, Mustafa Suleiman, about liability and what might happen when an AI model causes damage.

0:55I just got an email a couple weeks ago from the manufacturer of my car. There was a defect with it. I took it back. They repaired it at no cost. That's how it works. I don't know why there's even an issue. Manufacturers are responsible for the quality and the safety of the products they create. We've got an incredible track record as a society of doing that for 100 years. Broadly speaking, airlines are incredibly safe. Cars are incredibly safe. They enable us to eat healthy food that doesn't poison us. And we shouldn't be reinventing the wheel here. Netflix shares down 5 % this afternoon. Wells Fargo giving it a downgrade.

1:37Here's CNBC's Julia Boorstin. Wells flagging concerns about weakening engagement. Estimating hours watched per subscriber are down 4 % year over year, including a more than 20 % drop in viewership of Netflix originals. Now, Netflix has been investing in the likes of podcasts and bringing YouTubers over to its platform to catch up with YouTube, which surpassed it in terms of U.S. TV viewing time back in 2023. Wells saying that the original content slate is weaker than prior periods and the stock is now down over 40 percent in the past year. U.S. crude oil ticking below$102 a barrel this afternoon, but American drivers feeling More pain at the pump again today.

2:19The national average for a gallon of regular is eyeing$4.50, sitting at$4.47. Diesel is at a fresh record high today,$6.45 a gallon. The market is proving that it has zero tolerance for any refinery problems. There was a refinery problem at the ExxonMobil plant in Joliet, Illinois. There was a problem at the Valero Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. and subsequently we've seen prices in Chicago, for example, go up by 40 or 50 or 60 cents a gallon. So that's pretty daunting. It's pretty challenging going forward. That's Gulf Oil's chief energy advisor Tom Kloza on CNBC. J.P. Morgan's oil team has stopped trying to forecast the Iran war endgame as the Trump administration blows past economic red lines.

3:10Analysts had assumed at the start of the war that several economic points in time would force President Trump into a deal to stop the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The red lines included oil above$100 a barrel, prices at the pump near$5 a gallon, and 10-year Treasury yields above 5%. In a note by head of global commodities strategy, Natasha Koneva, she wrote, Six months later, many of those lines have been crossed, yet the exit strategy is less clear. Apple's iPhone 18 goes on sale today. The S &P Dow Jones indexes will undergo a quarterly rebalance effective after the market closed today.

3:49New in theaters tonight, Columbia's horror film Resident Evil. Jessica Ettinger, 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.