Market Open: Stocks Mixed, AI Returns in Question, Wholesale Inflation Surges • 10/15/26

0:01CNBC Business News Update Market Open. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Wall Street's mixed this morning out of the gate as bond yields dramatically fall. The rate on the 10-year note down to 5.05 % this morning from over 5.3 % earlier this week. Investors are starting to talk about AI delivering results not quite so quickly in the narrative of less demand for a buildout may be helping to ease rates. The Dow is up 222 points this morning. An upgrade for Walmart. It's leading the Dow higher, up 4%. The S &P 500 index is down 35 points, almost a half percent. The Nasdaq falling 317 points, more than 1 % this morning.

0:45Most of the chip makers in the red. Tech shares have been selling off again after the sell-off continued overnight overseas. Some investors fleeing to the safety of bonds, helping to send yields lower. Here's CNBC's Mike Santoli. Anything that consumes capital and that has a distant payoff is coming under fire today. I think the big question is if we can still assume that these are almost two independent channels of the economy, whereas the AI economy now perhaps has a lot more scrutiny about the payback. And the underlying, you know, real economy still remains pretty steady. More inflation data today.

1:24Wholesale prices soaring in September for their biggest jump in four years. Here's CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Leisman. Yeah, coming a little hot on the PPI here. I've got month over month PPI final demand up 1.3. The consensus was 0.5. PPI measures input costs for producers. These can hint at how much prices will eventually go up for consumers down the line. September retail sales numbers also out today. Here's more from Leisman. Retail sales coming in hotter. Retail sales 0.8 consensus was 0.4. But Leisman reports that soaring gas prices are a big part of the retail sales number for September.

2:08Retail sales X autos gas up just 0.1%. That tells us that this whole consumer spending beat, this retail sales beat, was all gas, which was up 6.4 percent, which tells us that the consumer, which we've been waiting to see if this happens, is making some choices here. Walmart, meantime, as I mentioned, got an upgrade today to a buy from Deutsche Bank for investors picking stocks. Deutsche says as inflation hits more U.S. consumers, Walmart is poised to do well, as I mentioned, Walmart leading the Dow higher. Apollo's Torsten Slock tells CNBC the latest inflation and retail sales data point to early signs of consumer weakness as they pay more for purchases and for home and car loans.

2:56Leasing a car has become very expensive. Buying a house mortgage rates were 2.7 during the pandemic. Now they are basically more than seven. So the conclusion is consumers are beginning to show some early signs of weakness because of higher rates. Investors are closely watching a report on the U.S. war with Iran as the U.S. reportedly considers the use of the mother of all bombs, the GBU-43B massive ordnance air blast bomb, which CNN is reporting is being considered, citing U.S. officials. CNBC has not independently confirmed this report. Iran strikes on ships in the Hormuz have increased to the most since the start of the war.

3:35President Trump said on October 8th he would not resume strikes on Iran until after the November 3rd midterm elections. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC.

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