Market Open: Stocks Slide, Oil Higher, AI Slowdown and Rate Hike in Focus • 9/14/26

0:00See NBC Business News Update Market Open. I'm Jessica Ettinger. Major averages all in the red to start this new week of trading. Investors weighing calls for an AI slowdown, sparking a global AI tech sell-off. Oils higher, a Fed interest rate increase looms. We've got the Dow out of the gate, down 160 points. It's being led lower by shares of Caterpillar, which are down more than 5 % this morning. The S &P 500 index down 55 points. The Nasdaq falling 316 points. It's almost one and a quarter percent. Most of the chip makers in the red. You've got Intel down 7 percent. Micron pulling back 6 percent.

0:42AMD down five and a half percent. The Fed meets tomorrow and Wednesday on interest rates. The announcement Wednesday afternoon. Here's a take from Seaport Research's Patrick Palfrey on CNBC. The rate hike is certainly a foregone conclusion. If we look out into what the market's expecting, we're expecting two bright hikes over the course of the year. The question is whether or not it's going to be disrupted, the stock prices. And when we see hikes, there's typically a bump in the road. But the question is what's going to happen longer term? What is the pace of economic growth in the underlying trajectory?

1:12All of that still remains quite strong. So longer term, we don't see an impact to equities, but certainly a hike is on the table. It will happen. Microsoft setting limits for future AI models as the industry throttles frontier style development. Open AI's Sam Altman, Anthropics Dario Amode and Elon Musk all warning that AI is moving too fast. Altman saying, quote, we could lose control. President Trump says there should be no slowdown in AI because China is forging ahead. Whoever wins, AI wins. And we can put guardrails, we can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of negative voices that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up.

1:53And they're bringing up things that won't happen. But whoever wins with AI wins. Oil higher today. U.S. crude now above$103 a barrel. The world benchmark crude at$108. Saudi Arabia shut down a pipeline that's been used to bypass the dangerous Strait of Hormuz after the pipeline was attacked and damaged. It was carrying about 7 million barrels of oil a day. Exactly a month ago on August 13, when oil prices were at$81, I said that the market was treating inventories and supplies from things like the SPR as though that was normal production. And the market just forgot to do math. They were listening to headlines out of Washington for President Trump saying everything's fine and not counting the barrels and not looking at the actual physical market.

2:39I think today's oil price at 107 brand, 103 WTI, is still the wrong price. It is still too low. That's TWG Global's Amos Hochstein on CNBC. Americans are paying even more at the pump today. $4.31, according to AAA, for the national average, up 15 cents a gallon for regular in just the last week, with diesel fuel at a record high nationwide. Social Security recipients could see their biggest increase in monthly payments in three years as inflation soars. USA Today says that using the August inflation data, next year's estimated cost of living adjustment, or COLA, could be about three and a half percent.

3:24The final number for 2027 will come on October 15th after the September inflation data are out. Warner Brothers Practical Magic 2 toppled Sony's Spider-Man brand new day and took the number one spot at the weekend box office. Spider-Man had been number one for six straight weeks. Television's biggest night is tonight. The industry celebrates with the primetime Emmy Awards. HBO's The Pit is the most nominated series. Jessica Edinger, CNBC.

3:56Jessica Ettinger: 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.