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This Week on Wall Street |
| Week of September 14, 2026 |
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| The war in the Gulf stayed the dominant headline through the weekend. Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline after a drone strike, closing the one route that lets the kingdom move crude to the Red Sea without passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and a meeting between Iran and the Gulf states set for Monday in Oman was postponed. Brent extended its advance again this morning. What reaches households is the refined product rather than the crude, and diesel crossed six dollars a gallon on Friday for the first time. Energy is not the whole story this week, though. The Fed announces its decision Wednesday afternoon, and August retail sales land the same morning, the last read on whether households are absorbing those fuel costs or pulling back. |
| Whether the Fed raises rates has been the open question for months rather than days. What changes this week is that the committee has to answer it. Futures put the odds of a quarter-point move near 90%, up sharply after Friday's inflation report showed prices firming rather than cooling. The committee has held the target range steady all year, over dissents in both directions, and the balance has shifted since July. Chair Warsh used his August remarks to argue that policymakers need clearer evidence of sustained disinflation before easing, and energy costs have moved the wrong way since he said it. The decision itself is close to priced. The path is not. This is one of the four meetings that carries a fresh Summary of Economic Projections and a new dot plot, which is the first full look at how far the committee now thinks it has to go and how quickly. Long rates have already moved ahead of the meeting, with the ten-year touching 5% this morning for the first time since 2023. |
| One gauge has stayed quiet through all of this. The high-yield spread, the extra yield investors ask to hold below-investment-grade corporate debt instead of Treasuries, sits near 270 basis points, close to the tightest readings of the past two years. The spread is useful because it separates two different kinds of repricing. When the risk-free rate rises, every discount rate in the market rises with it, and borrowing gets more expensive for everyone at once. When the spread widens, the market is saying something narrower about the borrowers themselves, about earnings, interest coverage and default risk. This year's move has been almost entirely the first kind. Credit has absorbed a higher base rate without asking for more compensation to take corporate risk. If a policy decision and costlier energy begin to show up in spreads rather than only in yields, that would mark a change in what the bond market is pricing. It is not there yet. |
Stocks Above Forty Times Forward Earnings |
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| There are currently 27 of these companies inside the S&P 500, a count consistent with past bear market lows. The difference is that the index sits within roughly two percent of its record close. Something is happening underneath the surface of this market, and it has less to do with price than with valuation. The count is down from a peak near 90 in 2021. |
| Source: Matt Cerminaro, data via Bloomberg Finance L.P. |
Economic Releases This Week |
| Monday | None |
| Tuesday | None |
| Wednesday | Retail Sales, FOMC Rate Decision |
| Thursday | Initial Jobless Claims, Housing Starts,
Pending Home Sales |
| Friday | None |
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Stories to Start the Week |
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What is Newton? |
| Our Newton model determines the highest probability of future price direction using advanced algorithmic and high-order mathematical techniques on the current market environment. It scores securities over multiple time periods on a 0–20 scale (0 worst, 20 best). Trend and level both matter. A name moving from 18 to 16 still signals a strong level, with slight exhaustion in the trend. ▼ 0–8 declining ▬ 9–13 neutral ▲ 14–20 strong |
| Equities | Trend | This Wk | Last Wk | | Large Cap | ▬ | 13 | 15 | | Mid Cap | ▬ | 13 | 14 | | Emerging Markets | ▬ | 11 | 15 | | Foreign Developed | ▬ | 9 | 13 | | Small Cap | ▼ | 8 | 12 |
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| Fixed Income | Trend | This Wk | Last Wk | | Floating Rate Bond | ▼ | 8 | 4 | | Corporate Bond | ▼ | 6 | 4 | | High Yield Bond | ▼ | 5 | 4 | | Long-Term Bond | ▼ | 4 | 5 | | Short Term Bond | ▼ | 4 | 3 | | Intermediate Term Bond | ▼ | 4 | 2 |
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| Sectors | Trend | This Wk | Last Wk | | Communications | ▲ | 14 | 10 | | Financials | ▬ | 12 | 12 | | Technology | ▬ | 11 | 14 | | Consumer Cyclical | ▬ | 10 | 12 | | Energy | ▬ | 9 | 8 | | Materials | ▼ | 7 | 7 | | Industrials | ▼ | 6 | 8 | | Utilities | ▼ | 6 | 8 | | Real Estate | ▼ | 6 | 2 | | Health Care | ▼ | 5 | 9 | | Consumer Defensive | ▼ | 4 | 3 |
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| Market Segments | Trend | This Wk | Last Wk | | Large Growth | ▬ | 13 | 14 | | Small Value | ▬ | 11 | 12 | | Small Growth | ▬ | 10 | 13 | | Large Value | ▬ | 9 | 11 | | Mid-Cap Growth | ▬ | 9 | 9 | | Mid-Cap Value | ▼ | 8 | 10 |
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Notable Newton Moves This Week: Communications was the only read to move into the strong band, climbing 10 to 14 and taking the top sector spot, while Real Estate posted the largest gain of the week at 2 to 6 and stayed in the declining band. Health Care reversed hardest at 9 to 5, with Technology easing out of green at 14 to 11. Equities softened across the board, Emerging Markets sliding 15 to 11, Foreign Developed 13 to 9 and Small Cap 12 to 8, leaving Large Cap and Mid Cap at 13 as the firmest reads in the group. Fixed income scores rose almost everywhere but remain entirely within the declining band. |
Technical trading models are mathematically driven based upon historical data and trends of domestic and foreign market trading activity, including various industry and sector trading statistics within such markets. Technical trading models, through mathematical algorithms, attempt to identify when markets are likely to increase or decrease and identify appropriate entry and exit points. The primary risk of technical trading models is that historical trends and past performance cannot predict future trends and there is no assurance that the mathematical algorithms employed are designed properly, updated with new data, and can accurately predict future market, industry and sector performance.
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