Market Midday: Stocks Higher, Oil Lower, Nvidia Honeypot Probe • 11/9/26

0:01See NBC Business News Update. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Wall Street is soaring this afternoon. Oil is dramatically falling. U.S. crude down to$87 a barrel. On hope the U.S. or on war will end sooner rather than later. That is helping stocks. The Dow is now up 1 ,064 points, more than 2%. Caterpillar shares leading it higher. Those shares up 6.5 % this afternoon. Goldman Sachs up almost 5%. Cisco up more than 4%. The S &P 500 index is up 169 points. That's 2.3%. And the NASDAQ popping 648 points. That's 2.5%. Chipmaker shares soaring. AMD up 11 percent. Qualcomm up 5 percent. Micron's up 6 percent now.

0:50It's NVIDIA that is falling this afternoon. That chipmaker down 5 percent after CEO Jensen Wong apologized to his staff and family for an extramarital affair that the New York Times and other reporting suggests was with a female Chinese spy. Here's the Portman Square Group's Michael Baker on CNBC. Once he started that relationship with this woman, with Alice Wong, the alleged, I can't believe I'm using the word alleged after all these years of working in counterintelligence with China. There were individuals within the Ministry of State Security getting promotions. There were parties going on, right?

1:28Because from their perspective, he's now compromised. They've set the hook. He took the bait, a classic sort of operation. This was a major score for the Chinese intel apparatus. Rochefort's Kyle Bass tells CNBC that a line has to be drawn between stock gains and U.S. national security. If our country left national security up to the private sector, we'd all speak Chinese tomorrow. We all know China is modernizing its battlefield, modernizing its military with NVIDIA's most advanced chips. And we are selling the chips. It'd be like us selling ammunition to the Germans in 1939. Former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken talked to CNBC about what he sees as the risks with NVIDIA.

2:11It does raise questions about what the administration knew, when did it know it, what did it do about it, if anything. And so we've seen the initial reporting on that. I'm sure there's going to be more to follow. It also raises questions about some of the decisions that the administration has made that apparently Jensen Wong lobbied for, For example, lifting restrictions on some of the sale of very high-end chips that NVIDIA makes to China. What about NVIDIA stock? A take from Aureus Assets' Karen Firestone on CNBC. She owns it. So the stock is down 26 % in about a month. I'm not saying anybody should buy it now, but markets have a way of stabilizing.

2:50This is very bad for him. I don't think it's going to end well. I think it's unlikely that if this woman happens to be found a spy, he can keep his job. I don't think that's going to be able to happen. Honda will spend$3 billion on a new vehicle assembly plant in Marysville, Ohio. Its focus will be hybrids, and it's expected to begin production in 2029. Natural gas prices hit their highest since mid-October today on the prospect of colder temperatures in key U.S. demand areas. It's a new weather forecast leading to calls for increased heating demand for gas, especially in the central and eastern U.S.

3:30Home listings piled up last month, but stubborn sellers don't seem to be slashing their prices. Active inventory was up in October, more than 7 percent. More homes on the market last month than the same month last year. But pending home sales plunged 16 percent from October of 2025. 25. Homes just sitting there on the market unsold, too expensive, and would-be buyers are balking. Jessica Edinger, 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.

4:11and 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 market update podcast, or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.