
October 19th, 2026
On Monday, artificial-intelligence stocks on Wall Street rebounded, recouping some of last week's steep losses, yet the broader market and global equities remain unsteady.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5%, rebounding from its worst week since June, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.1%, driven by its heavy weighting in technology stocks.
Most U.S. stocks outside AI and tech were nonetheless falling, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was largely unchanged as of 1:52 p.m. Eastern time, after fluctuating between earlier losses and gains.
In Europe, the declines were pronounced, with numerous indexes falling by more than 1%, including a 1.1% drop in Paris.
These losses came on the heels of violent weekend protests that could compel governments to raise spending, thereby placing even greater strain on their bond markets.
Yields climbed further for European bonds.
AI stocks stood out amid all the crosscurrents, as they have for most of the past few years.
A frenzy of spending on AI technology has propelled them to the forefront of the market, sending them to record prices and driving indexes higher.
Last week, AI stocks seized the spotlight after tumbling on worries about how expensive it has become to borrow money, which could threaten the boom.
Stocks are recouping a portion of last week's losses, buoyed by gains in technology shares, yet the broader markets remain unsettled.
A substantial portion of the expenditure on AI chips and data centers has been financed through borrowed capital, and Treasury yields in the bond market have recently reached their highest levels in years or even decades.
This drives up the cost of borrowing for everyone, from the U.S. government to companies to households.
CoreWeave, a company that has borrowed money to buy AI chips which it rents out to customers over the cloud, has been at the center of the market's shifts.
It rose 2.8% on Monday after tumbling 25.2% last week.
Nvidia gained 1.3% and ranked among the most powerful forces propelling the S&P 500.
As the largest stock on Wall Street by total market value, a 1% move in its shares exerts a greater influence on the index than that of any other.
SpaceX, which controls the xAI business, rose 0.8% to $147.26.
Its founder, Elon Musk, pledged on Monday to give one share of SpaceX to “every kid in America” next year.
The offer came after Anthropic said over the weekend that it will commit 5% of the shares in its highly anticipated initial public offering of stock to a new “public benefit” fund.
AI stocks advanced ahead of several profit reports due later in the week, which could shed further light on the strength of AI-related spending.
Meta Platforms, which is promoting its Muse AI agent, is set to disclose its latest quarterly results on Wednesday.
Lam Research, a supplier of equipment and services for semiconductor manufacturing, will likewise discuss on Wednesday how its business is performing.
Expectations are high across the board for U.S. companies' profits from the summer.
Analysts are forecasting overall growth of 29% for companies in the S&P 500 compared with the prior summer, according to FactSet.
These high expectations are what have allowed the U.S. stock market to reach record highs despite worries about war, high inflation and pressure from the bond market.
Cleveland-Cliffs surged 15.8% after the steel company reported a larger profit for the latest quarter than analysts had anticipated.
CEO Lourenco Goncalves described it as the company's strongest quarter in three years and stated that the outlook for profit in 2027 "has improved materially" compared with three months earlier.
In overseas stock markets, a rebound in AI stocks lifted South Korea's Kospi by 1.8%, helping it recover part of the 14.5% drop it had suffered the previous week.
The index is dominated by two major AI players, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which makes it considerably more volatile than other markets.
In Europe, bond yields climbed in the wake of mass protests against the rising cost of living and poor school conditions.
The protests could put pressure on governments to boost their spending to offer help, but that would likely only add to their already big piles of debt.
Yields on French bonds rose amid concerns over the government’s already strained budget, and they climbed far more than yields on German bonds, which investors have historically regarded as a safer bet.
In the U.S. bond market, yields advanced as the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.14% from 5.09% late Friday.
It had surpassed 5.30% earlier this month, reaching its highest level since 2002.
Oil prices fluctuated.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed 0.2% to $110.12 per barrel.
It had been declining earlier in the day and has been oscillating between $97 and $110 this month amid uncertainty over when the war with Iran will permit the energy industry to return to normal.
October 19th, 2026

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