Market Midday: Stocks Mixed, Oil and Yields Up, Muse Pressures Some Stocks • 9/22/26

0:01See NBC Business News update market midday. I'm Jessica Ettinger. A few things have changed over the last few hours on Wall Street. The major averages are now mixed. The Dow and the S &P 500 index giving back some morning gains. The yield on the 10 year Treasury ticking higher this afternoon. U.S. crude oil ticking higher. It's back above$96 a barrel. The Nasdaq's coming off a fresh record high close yesterday and set a new intraday record high today. Starting with the Dow, it's now down 281 points. Cisco shares leading the Dow lower. They're down almost 5.5%. J.P. Morgan shares down 3.5%. Travelers down almost 3%.

0:46The S &P 500 index down 4 points. The Nasdaq still in the green, up only 66 points this afternoon. Iran has offered to reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the U.S. eases military pressure and lifts its blockade on Iranian ports. This is a report from Reuters and several others. But Bank of America's Francisco Blanche tells CNBC there's no sign of anything really happening. Frankly, it doesn't look like things are about to settle down. Plus, I think there's also a question about how sustainable the situation is with the U.S. spending all this money to try to keep vessels flowing through Hormuz.

1:28But at the same time, refineries are still a major bottleneck. So we really don't see a sign of relief. U.S. drivers, meantime, dealing with prices at the pump today that are holding. The national average for a gallon of regular is sitting at$4.48, according to AAA. Diesel fuel hitting a fresh record high today. $6.53 a gallon. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta shares were ticking higher after an 11 % pop yesterday on excitement over its consumer AI app. It's called Muse, the number one free app on the Apple download chart. Muse may be sending other companies' shares lower this afternoon. Here's CNBC's Julia Borsten with Carl Quintanilla.

2:12Among the biggest losers today are Schwab, Ameriprise, Expedia, Intuit. I mean, those are businesses that ostensibly could be disrupted if people start adopting Muse or something like it en masse. There's this question about who will agents hurt, right? Which companies are going to suffer from this? Expedia, you mentioned, could you ask Muse to plan a trip for you or find the best deal on a hotel? That's where this agentic piece of this comes in and could have much broader impact than just disrupting search. No AI rally slowdown anytime soon, says the American Enterprise Institute's James Pethagoukas on CNBC.

2:53Every politician is trying to think of ways to limit this technology, stop data centers from being built. But the fact that the president of the United States is saying, no, we shouldn't pause. We shouldn't stop. We need to accelerate. Right. On the Washington side, well, there will be like a lot more bills coming up about what to do about AI. As long as Donald Trump is president, we're not getting any sort of AI ban or the kind of substantive legislation. I think that would really undermine this rally. President Trump speaking at the U.N. today, slamming Iran and Cuba. The president boasted about his record in his speech to the United Nations and also snapped at CNN saying you shouldn't be here covering me.

3:34Fall arrives tonight. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC.

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