Market Midday: Stocks Rise, Diesel Sets New Record, Palantir CEO on AI Safety • 9/17/26

0:01CNBC Business News Update. Market midday. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Wall Street in the green this afternoon after yesterday's Fed interest rate increase sell-off. Investors are more at ease today after that increase of a quarter percentage point. Treasury yields were easing and oil prices have been pulling back. The Dow up 357 points. Cisco shares leading it higher. They're up almost 3 % this afternoon. The S &P 500 index up 84 points. That's more than 1%. And the Nasdaq's up 422 points. That's more than 1.5 % this afternoon. Chipmaker shares are higher. The airline stocks are higher on that oil pullback.

0:46Very often, as we always say and said yesterday, you get to rethink the next day. Most of today, though, the rally, I would say half of it is oil going down. CNBC's Mike Santoli. U.S. crude oil below$100 a barrel now on more robust supplies. And as Saudi Arabia is offering ship-to-ship transfers to move oil globally and to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and other bottlenecks in the Middle East. U.S. drivers, though, feeling a big jump in pain at the pump today. Overnight, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas popped up another seven cents. Americans now paying an average$4.44 a gallon.

1:24Kepler's Matt Smith with CNBC's Becky Quick. On opposite land that's happening with gas prices, normally gas goes down in the fall. People are kind of bewildered when they see what's happening when they fill up their tank. Yeah, absolutely. And particularly with gasoline, it's a seasonal time of year when it typically drops, right? We're through the summer driving season. But in terms of oil prices here, we're up like about$30 from early last month. And so that is working its way into prices of the pump and with diesel, too. And yes, diesel fuel is at another record high this afternoon, up nine cents a gallon overnight to 640 a gallon.

1:59It's an inflation driver. How long before you anticipate that that really works its way through the system, diesel prices in particular? It's already doing so, right? Ninety percent of our groceries move around the U.S. on 18 wheelers. It's agriculture, it's construction, it's manufacturing. You go in the grocery store, you can already see that prices are rising. That's only going to continue as that cost gets passed through. Pending home sales flat from August. And now mortgage rates are even higher here in September. Month to month up 0.3%, but down 4.7 % year over year. That according to the National Association of Realtors.

2:36Now this count is based on signed contracts on existing homes. So it's people out shopping in August as the average rate on the 30-year fix was holding pretty steady around 6.75 percent. Definitely higher than the spring, but not at all where we are today, which is well over 7 percent. CNBC's Diana Olick. AI safety. Palantir CEO Alex Karp with CNBC's Sarah Eisen on AI companies trying to get out of liability for bad things happening. The danger is not just the danger of dangerous things happening to humanity, which, by the way, what business isn't responsible for minding your own safety? This is a whole new frontier, right?

3:13When they're talking about the safety of humanity and creating a technology, an AI that can break free this misalignment from human intention and then do really bad stuff to us. You think they can self-regulate that? Well, you have to find a way to set reasonable guidelines that are enforced, but you can't do it. The first line of defense is you're liable for your own actions. They're asking for societal regulation to get out of the first line of defense. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will decide its own partnerships. President Trump calling the EU proposal laughable after the EU invited Canada to become its first associate member.

3:52The U.S. and Canada trade war drags on. Jessica Edinger, CNBC. Hey, Fidelity. What's it cost to invest with the Fidelity app? Start with as little as$1 with no account fees or trade commissions on U.S. stocks and ETFs. Hmm, that's music to my ears. I can only talk. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Zero account fees apply to retail brokerage accounts only. 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, LLC, member NYSE SIPC.