—
C+
C+ The full Closelooknet — membership. Open the C+ overview

The Trading Day · Thursday, October 1, 2026

Markets — Nasdaq +1.5% before the open even as TLT breaks 78; Tokyo +3.3% on Micron's record quarter

The fourth quarter opens on a green screen — even though long bonds just broke a key level. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 1.5% before the US open, Tokyo's Nikkei closed up 3.29% at about 68,950, and Seoul's Kospi rose about 1%. The spark was Micron's report: a record quarter and a guide well above estimates, read as proof that AI spending is still accelerating. Chip-equipment makers in Tokyo and memory makers in Seoul led.

The Morning 10

Markets — Nasdaq +1.5% before the open even as TLT breaks 78; Tokyo +3.3% on Micron's record quarter

  1. 1 Risk-on — Nasdaq 100 futures +1.5%, Nikkei +3.29% on chip stocks, Kospi up about 1%
  2. 2 Micron — beat on every line, guided 8% above estimates; a stock that usually moves 11% is up 0.37%
  3. 3 Bonds — TLT closes at 77.78, below 78 at the close this time; seventh down day in a row
  4. 4 Rebalance done — Atlassian, Lenovo and Illumina give back weight as four indices reset to an equal share
  5. 5 AI Board — 110 of 126 Rubin names still losing strength, 34 of 40 Agentic Winners gaining
  6. 6 Software — ServiceNow +3.1%, Salesforce +1.9%, IGV +1.2%; chips mixed as Arm and ASML slip
  7. 7 Jabil — beat and raised, sank 10% to 286.86
  8. 8 Movers — Fair Isaac -4.1% to 592.47, below 600; Meta -1.8%, Eli Lilly -2.3%, Apple +1.1%
  9. 9 Oil — Brent fund BNO +2.3% after Tuesday's drop; gold -0.5%, silver -1.8%
  10. 10 Today — Accenture before the open, jobless claims and the factory survey, Nike after the close

The full Morning 10 →

The Midday 10

AI comeback — Accenture +18%, Synopsys +8%, optics +9% while all three US indices slip

  • 1 Breadth: 75% of S&P 500 stocks fell in September; only 49% trade above their 200-day average (Morgan Stanley), from about 75%; in our chip section 68 of 85 rose and 66 sit above the 200-day
  • 2 All three indices lower: Dow 50,651.13 (−0.50%), S&P 500 7,626.87 (−0.32%), Nasdaq 26,755.92 (−0.39%); equal-weight fund RSP −0.13%, small caps IWM −0.28%; chip index SOX +0.47%, software fund IGV +0.25%; TLT $77.65 (+0.23%), 30-year yield 5.61%
  • 3 Accenture $216.21 (+17.91%) on record bookings; IT services follow: Cognizant +6.72%, EPAM +6.48%, Infosys +5.90%, Gartner +3.76%, Capgemini +7.38% at the Paris close

All ten lines →

Daily Pulse — Nasdaq — The Bad Season Is Over and a Record Is Close: Will the Midterm Rally Repeat?

The six weeks that usually hurt stocks the most are behind us, and the Nasdaq 100 did not get hurt: it rose 4.2% in August and 3.2% in September and closed Wednesday at 30,408.50, just 1.05% below its record of 22 September. Futures point to a gain of about 1.5% at Thursday's open, enough to set a new high. History says the next nine months are the best stretch of the four-year cycle: since 1986 the Nasdaq 100 rose from the end of September of a midterm year to the following June in all ten cases, by 31% on average. The question is whether 2026 is a normal midterm year. The two midterm years with a bad final quarter, 2018 and 2022, were years when the Fed was raising rates — and two Fed voters are talking about a hike again.

The full Pulse →

The permanent record of one trading day on Closelooknet — an investment research diary, not advice. Today's live view is the homepage.