Market Open: Stocks Mostly Lower, Oil Prices Rise, Housing Starts Fall 10-20-2026

0:01I'm Peter Schacknow, CNBC. Stocks have opened mostly lower as ongoing worries over oil prices, interest rates, and the artificial intelligence trade move back to the forefront. The Dow is up by 58 points at 52 ,032, but the S &P 500 down by 0.2 % or 11 points and the Nasdaq falling 0.6 % or 146 points. Crude oil is a particular issue this morning, with WTI crude touching its highest level since the end of April. Interest rates were a key factor in the government's latest report on housing starts, which fell 5.2 percent last month. Analysts had expected an increase, but CNBC real estate correspondent Diana Olick says higher mortgage rates make that unlikely.

0:45You started September with rates around 6.8 percent on the 30-year fix, and throughout the month you were up around 7.5. We saw it in the homebuilder sentiment numbers yesterday. They dropped to a 14-year low with builders citing that mortgage rate hike. And on the permit side, which is an indicator of future construction, again, you're not going to see them saying, OK, we're going to put holes in the ground if we're seeing these 7.5 % rates. We'll get another housing report coming up shortly when the National Association of Realtors issues its pending home sales report for September. Among stocks on the move this morning, General Motors is down about 1.5%, despite better-than-expected quarterly earnings.

1:23The company does say some external headwinds, including higher materials costs, are intensifying. Netflix is down about 1 % ahead of its quarterly earnings report. The streaming service will issue its latest numbers after today's closing Bell. SpaceX also scheduled to deliver an after-the-bell earnings report. Its stock is up more than 1 % this morning. Peter Schachnow, 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 investing involves risk including risk of loss fidelity brokerage services llc member nycsipc