Price action in the fixed-income market suggested bonds are in the process of finding a bottom, even as incoming data indicated inflation remains a problem. At the same time, during yet another difficult day for technology, the three main stock indexes rallied for modest gains on Wednesday.
By the closing bell, the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average had added 1.1% to 52,177, the broad-based S&P 500 was up 0.3% at 7,744, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite had rallied for a 0.08% gain to 26,713.
"As horrific as the PPI was," Louis Navellier of Navellier & Associates says, "believe it or not, Treasury yields actually declined on the perception that this may be the peak in the poor inflation news."
Indeed, the 2-year Treasury yield was down 4.5 basis points to 4.757%, while the 10-year (-9.9 bps, 5.091%) and the 30-year (-9.3 bps, 5.431%) pulled back even further.
As Navellier notes, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM, -1,7%) reported 51% top-line growth and 59% bottom-line growth for its third quarter. Management also raised its full-year guidance.
Still, Nvidia (NVDA, -1.8%) was down again, as was the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH, -1.0%) — the exchange-traded fund's eighth straight loss.
"A lot of market pundits think that stocks are priced for perfection," Navellier writes, "but I remain confident that when the third-quarter announcement season winds down, the S&P 500's earnings will be up at least 33%."
The Fed has 'work to do'
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said before the opening bell that the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 1.3% in September, more than double a FactSet-compiled consensus forecast for 0.5% month-over-month acceleration. PPI was up to 6.3% from 5.6% compared to September 2025.
"PPI inflation was higher than expected in September as energy prices surged and food prices rose," Fifth Third Commercial Bank Chief U.S. Economist Bill Adams observes. "Core inflation exceeded forecasts, too."
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A red-hot September CPI report and today's PPI data "show no sign of inflation moving back to the Fed's target," Adams concludes, "leaving the central bank with 'more work to do,' to borrow Chair Warsh's phrase from his Jackson Hole speech in August."
Nike tops the Dow
Nike (NKE, +5.3%) is now the smallest of the Dow Jones stocks, and it's the worst performer of the 30 so far this year. But that didn't stop the sneaker company from leading the index on Thursday.
NKE was down 78.2% from an all-time closing high of $161.91 on November 5, 2021, to $35.30 at the end of regular trading on Wednesday, presenting what looks like a bargain to many investors, traders and speculators.
Indeed, the iconic athleisure brand has bounced off an intraday low of $31.97, plumbed on October 2 in the aftermath of a less-than-stellar fiscal 2027 first-quarter earnings report.
Perhaps what was once the consummate consumer discretionary stock will find its way to lists of the best value stocks to buy, perhaps not.
Wall Street remains skeptical about Nike's turnaround, with 10 analysts rating the stock a Buy, 25 calling it a Hold and seven saying it's a Sell. The average 12-month target price is $37.88, upside of 1.9% from NKE's closing price on Thursday.
Why we need to talk about CoreWeave
CoreWeave (CRWV, +5.9%), which completed one of the biggest IPOs of 2025 on the back of its AI cloud platform, has become the focal point for broad market concern about the health of the current industrial revolution.
CRWV has fallen about 64% from its June 20, 2025, all-time high, as questions about returns on the capex fueling the boom have mounted amid rising debt, spiking bond yields and growing perception of the risks of an AI bubble.
But Deutsche Bank analyst Brad Zelnick reiterated his Buy rating and his $150 12-month target price for the tech stock on Thursday and said recent price action presents an opportunity.
"A confluence of factors appear to have led to a sharp selloff in CoreWeave's public equity and debt over the past week," Zelnick writes. "There's no doubt CoreWeave's future is tied to the success of AI and demand for the underlying compute infrastructure supporting it, and thus its shares should reflect changes in sentiment here."
CRWV gapped down at Thursday's open, but rallied through the session to post a solid gain. "A strong customer base, established record of execution, backlog conversion and leading infrastructure performance is all supportive of their issuer profile relative to neocloud peers," Zelnick concludes.