Rates, Oil Rise As AI Warnings Sweep Wall St… And Banking On Blockchain 9/14/26

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The board recommends approving...

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Regarding that seat on the committee, we're promoting...

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To boost quarterly earnings...

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Melissa Lee (1:01)

Live from the NASDAQ Market site in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap tonight. A potential triple threat to the markets grabbing our attention today, but stocks largely shrugging off concerns. So is the market more resilient than we feared? And where do stocks go from here? In banking and blockchain, we'll talk to the CEO of OpenReserve, which just received conditional approval for its blockchain-based bank, how he does business differently and what it could mean for your money. Plus, cyber stock surge on the latest AI concerns. Is Novo throwing a Hail Mary ahead of its capital markets day? And new numbers from Netflix's big bet on live football will last Thursday's game score a touchdown for investors. We'll get all the details later this hour. I'm Melissa Lee, come to you live from the studio at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Carter Braxton-Worth, Dan, Nathan and Guy Adami. And we start off with those three big moves that should have weighed on investors today. The benchmark 10-year treasury yield crossing the key 5% level early in the session. It was the first time that happened since October 2023 That took a bite out of rate-sensitive sectors from homebuilders to financials to utilities. Oil prices also rising, WTI hitting a high close to 105, a barrel, the highest level since May 18th. And of course, there was the stark warning from AI leaders over the weekend, the CEOs of both OpenAI and Anthropic saying, the industry needs to slow down due to safety risks. That sent semi-stocks, especially memory makers, thinking today, the DRAM ETF seeing its worst day in nearly a month. The stocks and SMH both at their worst since July. Despite all that, markets broadly held up fairly well. All major indices down half a percent. So what does this all tell you about the resilience or maybe the complacency of stocks, Guy?

Guy Adami (2:42)

Resilience is the word. I mean, complacency is a word. Resilience, I think, is the word. Now, it will not be complacency if you see the VIXN or the 20, which by the way, I think we're headed towards. It showed some signs of life today, but it's resilience, and the resilience has come in the form of the S&P 500, which despite all the things we talk about, is still within a couple percent of an all-time high, which again, if you had said 10-year yields of 5%, oil north of 100, and all these other AI headlines over the weekend, I would have been convinced by this time this year would be below 7,000, and we're not. But you mentioned the SMH quickly. That has been very quietly rolling over since the middle of July. That is absolutely worth watching.

Melissa Lee (3:21)

Yeah, you've been mentioning that lately.

Tim Seymour (3:23)

Yeah, and look, it has not been able to get out since July 14th of its own way in that relative underperformance, so making new relative lows. And if you're in the semiconductor space, even a small change in the rate of growth. So in other words, these announcements by the big three, even Elon was in on that, at least ratified it, at least sounded like he was on board with a slowing. A slowing on the rate of growth has enormous implications for a sector that even NVIDIA, with a below market multiple, the entire space is priced for extraordinary growth. Now, if you talk to me about the market's reaction to this, a little slower growth in AI may be actually fantastic for the markets. And you see the correlation, what that meant for Mag-7, what it meant for market cap stocks. When I hear about slowing the process down, I hear about less spending, I hear about less need to raise debt. That also could be positive for the long end of the treasury curve if you believe there's a lot of pressure and issuance. So if you slow the whole thing down, it's going to slow down a little bit. Today doesn't really scare me from the equities perspective. The bond market is another story. And I just think the rate of change there is a lot more aggressive than we had seen. It's seven straight months of higher yields. We haven't seen this since 2011 That was the last time we were really talking about sovereign debt crises, especially those in Europe. So that's the story.