Tues., Oct. 6, 2026
[4:10 PM ET…closing prices for stocks, 3:50ish for commodities and bonds]
Tale of the Tape at the gas pump, nationwide averages, courtesy of AAA.
Fri., Feb. 27…regular $2.98…diesel $3.75
Tues., Oct. 6…regular $4.36…diesel $6.31
Crude oil fell for a third consecutive session on Tuesday, approaching $87 a barrel on WTI before rebounding back above $89 late in the day, amid reports that indicated Iran had stepped up attacks on tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz in the past few days.
That said, there continue to be growing signs that Middle Eastern crude exports are recovering. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister said that oil flows through the East-West Pipeline reached 5.8 million barrels, while Reuters reported that shipments through the route had not been interrupted.
In addition, reports showed that crude exports from the Middle East exceeded pre-war levels on four days during the final week of September. Adding to the bearish pressure, G7 countries agreed on Friday to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude from emergency reserves and pledged to refrain from imposing energy export restrictions.
In Yemen, Saudi-backed forces seized the Red Sea city of Mocha from the Iranian-backed Houthis as they push toward the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, after the Houthis had grabbed control with an offensive of their own.
And as noted yesterday, Saudi Arabia also sharply cut the price of its flagship crude grade for Asian buyers as supply flows improved, providing further evidence of a loosening market.
With the decline in oil helping, bonds rallying a bit on reduced inflation fears, stocks hit new all-time highs on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, with Nvidia nearing a $6 trillion valuation, which is hard to imagine, while AMD CEO Lisa Su predicted “very high” chip demand over the next few years and AMD shares surged.
Meanwhile, across the pond, political unrest in France, coupled with their huge budget deficit, has led to investors fleeing French paper in favor of the bonds of fiscally conservative Germany.
Back on May 29, 2026, the spread between the German 10-year and the French 10-year was 61 basis points…2.94% (Germany), 3.55% (France).
That spread widened to 141 bps this past Friday, Oct. 2…3.46% (Germany), 4.87% (France). [The spread today, Tues., was 3.47% / 4.75%.]
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Bloomberg TV had an interview with JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon today, and he said Anthropic’s Mythos AI model has dramatically increased global cybersecurity risks.
Risks from AI “went up 10-fold after Mythos,” Dimon said. “AI created vulnerabilities that we didn’t know about, and we always worried about cyber before these things.”
During safety testing earlier this year, Mythos accessed the internet and took unauthorized actions, prompting Anthropic to reassess the danger that advanced models could pursue a task in ways their creators never anticipated. In some cases, AI models have attempted to add harmful code to online software, marking the latest in a string of breaches that have heightened concerns that AI providers can’t fully control their creations.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic have publicly acknowledged that they’ve inadvertently breached the systems of multiple institutions, such as Hugging Face Inc., while testing their models.
“The downside is obviously what you read about with the agents and Mythos and all these things that can cause trouble, and that’s a legitimate concern, it’s a real thing,” Dimon said. “I’m not going to get hysterical over, ‘Is it existential or not?’ What we’re doing is rolling up our sleeves and going to work to fix it.”
On another issue, data centers, Dimon said they should be built in places where the community supports them.
“There are a lot of states that would take it that have access to power.”
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Dow Jones +253…+0.5% [51521]
S&P 500 +44…+0.6% [7818…record]
Nasdaq +122…+0.5% [27599…record]
Oil (WTI) $89.80…Brent $100.95
Gold $4170
Silver $61.40
Bitcoin: $85,635 [4:00 PM ET]
U.S. 2-yr. 4.80%
U.S. 10-yr. 5.28%
Japanese 10-yr. 3.08%
Back Wed.
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Brian Trumbore
