Market Open: Stocks Higher, Nasdaq Extends Record Run, Airports Recover • 9/22/26

0:00CNBC Business News Update Market Open. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Wall Street's higher out of the gate this morning. The Nasdaq's coming off a fresh record high close from yesterday, building on that. The yield on the 10-year Treasury below 5 % this morning. The U.S. crude oil price below$94 a barrel now. The Dow up 115 points, being led higher by shares of drug maker Amgen. They're up 2.5%. The S &P 500 index adding 15 points. The Nasdaq up 107 points, four-tenths of 1%. I mean, mania is back. Yeah, you know, I believe the AI trade's a bubble. Obviously, Muse has reinvigorated Meta platforms. The way I describe it is Meta has taken the role that Google had at the beginning of the year and lost, where it's a big publicly traded company with billions of users.

0:52So if it has a good enough AI product, it can distribute that very effectively. Jones Trading's Mike O 'Rourke on CNBC. Reports say Iran is offering 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. The report by Reuters and others raises hope of a renewed U.S.-Iran diplomacy. And as Washington intensifies economic pressure on Tehran and Iran-backed Houthis, threatened shipping around the Bab el-Mandeb, another key oil choke point. U.S. drivers dealing with prices at the pump, though, that are holding with the national average at$4.48 a gallon for regular, according to AAA.

1:39Diesel is up again today, hitting a fresh record high,$6.53 a gallon. Flights in the Northeast trying to return to normal schedules today. Here's CNBC's Morgan Brennan. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says damaged telecom lines have been repaired and that all airports in the Northeast are resuming normal operations. This after a failed circuit and damaged backup connection near Philadelphia forced airports across the region to cancel more than 800 flights yesterday and more than 600 at Newark Airport alone. Jeffries noting that the ground stop may bring renewed attention to the$12.5 billion FAA modernization program that was awarded back in 2025 to PE-backed Periton.

2:21One of the airlines most impacted, according to Jeffries, is United Airlines. McDonald's holding its investor day today in Chicago as the chain has been struggling. It's facing high beef prices and some sharp competition from Burger King and Shake Shack. Paramount Skydance shares were higher in early trading after it settled an antitrust lawsuit with a group of U.S. states led by California. They sued to block the Paramount merger with Warner Brothers Discovery. The merger combines two big movie studios along with HBO Max as well as CBS News and CNN. Here's CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin with Becky Quick.

2:59California Attorney General Rob Bonta led that charge to try and stop the merger. As part of the settlement, Bonta said that the combined studio will release 30 films theatrically in its first two years and 32 in the following three years. And it agreed to keep both the Paramount and the Warner Brothers production lots in Los Angeles. By the way, most of those things are things that Ellison had said he was going to do anyway. This is not a win for Bonta. Well, you're going to have to do what you said you were going to do, basically. I guess it binds them to these things. Cal Shie asking the CFTC to allow margin trading on the prediction market platform.

3:33That lets users buy with borrowed money. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is the federal regulator for event contracts. Google fined nearly a half billion dollars for breaching the European Union's strict privacy rules because it mishandled users' location data. Fall arrives tonight. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. Building a portfolio with Fidelity Basket Portfolios is kind of like making a sandwich. It's as simple as picking your stocks and ETFs, sort of like your meats and other topics, and managing it as one big, juicy investment. Now that's pretty good. Learn more at fidelity.com slash baskets.

4:19Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokers Services, LLC. Member NYSC SIPC. Thank you.