Nasdaq Hits Record as Yields Climb; PTC and RXO Jump on Buyout Deals

It's Monday, October fifth. This is Trade and Ticker — the lunch report. Here's your midday check on U.S. stocks.

Three things still matter into the afternoon. First, Treasury yields, which are pushing higher again and keeping a lid on everything outside of big tech. Second, a busy Monday for deals, with P-T-C and R-X-O both jumping on buyout offers. Third, a quiet after-the-bell calendar tonight, which hands the next move to bonds and the Fed minutes later this week.

Here's the picture at midday. It's a split board, with big tech carrying the averages while the Dow lags. The Nasdaq is up about three-quarters of a percent and touched another record high. The S-and-P is up about half a percent. The Dow is roughly flat, just a hair lower. Earlier this morning the Dow was lower, with Caterpillar and Goldman Sachs among the biggest drags, before it clawed most of that back. That gap is the signal: money is crowding into the largest growth names, while the rest of the market is fighting higher rates.

On the data, the Institute for Supply Management's services index came in at fifty-four-point-nine for September, down from fifty-five-point-four in August and a touch below forecasts. That's still solid growth. Employment in services moved back above fifty for the first time in three months, at fifty-point-one. The part that worries the bond market is prices. The prices-paid index jumped to seventy-four, up from seventy-two-point-six in August. That lines up with what the manufacturing survey showed last week, and it supports the view that the Fed could still raise rates in December.

Bonds are reacting to that. The ten-year Treasury yield is higher on the day, around five-point-three percent, near multi-year highs. Traders still see roughly a four-in-five chance the Fed holds steady this month, but a December hike is largely priced in. U.S. crude is a little lower, around ninety dollars a barrel, and Brent is also a bit lower, still just above a hundred.

On the leaders, megacaps are doing the work. Nvidia is up a little more than one percent, sitting near its record. Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla are each up roughly one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half percent. Software is one of the strongest corners of the market today, while chip stocks are about flat overall. Intel is the chip laggard, down about two percent after Elon Musk hinted that Taiwan Semiconductor could join his Terafab chip project. That's a smaller loss than it showed before the bell.

Now the deals. P-T-C, the industrial software company, is up about thirty-four percent, the best performer in the S-and-P, after Schneider Electric agreed to buy it for two hundred five dollars a share in cash, a deal worth about twenty-two-point-six billion dollars in equity. The stock is trading a bit below that offer price. In trucking and freight, R-X-O is up about twenty-two percent after C-H Robinson agreed to buy it in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about five-point-eight billion dollars. C-H Robinson shares are down more than ten percent. Cerebras is rallying after OpenAI's Sam Altman called the chipmaker a close partner. And in biotech, Vaxcyte is up about forty percent after its thirty-one-strain pneumococcal vaccine, which targets pneumonia and related infections, met all of its main goals in a late-stage trial.

After the close tonight, the earnings calendar is quiet. There's no major company reporting to reset the market overnight. The bigger names come later in the week. Constellation Brands reports after the bell tomorrow. Minutes from the Fed's September meeting come out Wednesday afternoon, and PepsiCo and Delta are on the calendar later in the week. So the closing hour today is mostly about yields and whether big tech can hold its lead.

Watch three things into the close. First, whether the Nasdaq holds its record-high gain, or whether growth gives some back if yields keep climbing. Second, the ten-year yield, and whether it pushes further above five-point-three percent after that hot prices reading. Third, the Dow, and whether industrials and banks keep dragging or catch up to the rest of the market by four o'clock.

That's your midday map. We'll be back this evening with a company deep dive on today's biggest stories, including what Schneider Electric's big software bet means for P-T-C, and how the deal rush is shaping the week. Thanks for listening. I'm Trade and Ticker.