Market Midday: Stocks Higher, Nasdaq Hits Record, Real Estate Slows • 10/5/26

0:00See NBC Business News Update Market Midday. It's a record-setting day on Wall Street. Today we have the major averages all in the green. Investors still watching bond yields and oil, but the Dow is up 75 points now. It's being led higher by shares of Verizon, which are up almost 2%. The S &P 500 index is up 45 points. That's a half percent. And look at the NASDAQ hitting a fresh record high today. It's up 221 points at 27 ,412. It's up eight-tenths of a percent. NVIDIA shares building on the record high. It hit last Friday. They're up eight-tenths of a percent this afternoon. Investors are watching bond yields.

0:44The rate on the 10-year note rising was now at 5.33 percent. Here's the take from Hightower's Stephanie Link on CNBC. She still like stocks. 5 % plus on a 10-year for a long period of time makes bonds pretty interesting. That being said, I think the long-term total return for the S &P 500 is much more compelling. We've grown 8 % on average over the last 10 years. Mortgage rates are hanging around a 7.5 % level, according to Mortgage News Daily. Today, it's 7.57 % for a 30-year fixed home loan. That is a big mental block for a lot of people who would really like to buy a home. The 7 % interest rate is a very real barrier for people psychologically.

1:29And this is not unprecedented. We were here in October of 2022. What we saw immediately when rates crossed into the sevens was higher cancellation rates for a couple of weeks than it normalized to year over year numbers. What this means is that by the end of the year, we will probably have a softer market that we the beginning of the year. That's EXP Realty's CEO, Leo Pereja on CNBC. He notes that some of the new construction home builders may still be buying down interest rates just to get people in their completed new homes. They've got to sell them. And he says, would-be buyers should be looking there.

2:04General Motors says, we're aware that U.S. buyers are rushing to get hybrid vehicles with gas prices through the roof. Many are made by Hyundai and their rivals. GM executives telling CNBC they're not tone-deaf to their customers. More hybrids are coming. GM's vice president of propulsion engineering reconfirmed the automaker's hybrid plans to CNBC, but he would not discuss timing for such vehicles. U.S. crude oil holding above$90 a barrel this afternoon. Drivers with a little relief at the pump today. AAA says regular gas down 12 cents a gallon over the past week, sitting at about$4.36 a gallon.

2:44Diesel is about 20 cents per gallon less from its recent all-time high. Here's CNBC's Dan Murphy in Abu Dhabi. Aramco CEO, Arman Nasser, says global oil inventories are, quote, scarily thin. His message is, until Hormuz fully reopens and confidence returns, the crude reality, he says, is that pressure at both ends of the barrel will intensify, replenishing inventories, he says, while meeting demand could take up to two years. So that's part of the reason that we're seeing major economies now preparing to release up to 100 million barrels of emergency oil and products, particularly diesel. He says it basically buys time, but doesn't solve the underlying supply problem.

3:30The Powerball jackpot tonight closing in on a half billion dollars. It's sitting at 467 million. I'm Jessica Ettinger, CNBC.