The Wall Street Wrap: September 22, 2026

Nasdaq notches second straight record close as chip and memory stocks lead, Trump warns Iran at UN

Welcome to Wall Street Wrap, your quick end-of-day rundown of what moved US markets today, plus what's shaping global sentiment overnight.

MARKETS TODAY

The Nasdaq notched a record high close on Tuesday, lifted by Micron and other AI-related stocks, while the S&P 500 hovered just below its own record as oil traded around $90 to $100 a barrel depending on the benchmark. The S&P 500 ended essentially flat at 7,764.64. The Nasdaq gained 0.45% to 27,244.28, its second straight record close, while the Dow declined 0.36% to 51,863.69. Chip and memory stocks extended recent gains, with Micron rallying 5% and SanDisk gaining almost 7%, while consumer-facing software and financial names lagged: Charles Schwab lost 6.1% and Airbnb declined 3% amid worries that Meta's new Muse AI agent could compete with retailers, brokerages, and other consumer-facing businesses. The 10-year Treasury yield hovered around 4.94% to 4.96% after President Trump warned in a UN General Assembly speech that he could "annihilate the Islamic Republic" absent a deal to end the Middle East conflict.

ANALYTICAL VIEW

Tuesday's session showed the AI rally starting to fragment rather than broaden. "There are a lot of tech stocks that are down today on Muse-related fears of one sort or another," said one portfolio manager, noting that investors worry Meta's new agent could disrupt insurance, travel booking, and retail relationships the way Amazon's decision to block the bot from its own platform suggested. That rotation showed up cleanly in the sector split: six of the 11 S&P 500 sectors declined, led by financials (down 1.68%) and communication services (down 0.8%), even as chip and memory names kept climbing. Investors are awaiting Thursday's US-China summit, with traders speculating that the trade truce with Beijing could be extended and that talks could touch on AI regulation. "What people are looking for is at least the start of a conversation that maybe you can come up with some sort of global framework as opposed to fighting each other," said one market strategist.

Fed officials added their own thread to the day. Boston Fed President Susan Collins wrote that she supported last week's rate increase, citing inflation risks, while New York Fed President John Williams said the Fed's short-term rate framework has been effective. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin went further, telling the CFA Society Baltimore that economic conditions "are, if anything, firming," with strength beyond AI data centers keeping inflation risk in focus: "the risks to inflation outweigh the risks to maximum employment. That's why we raised rates." Markets now see a 53% chance of at least one more 25 basis point hike in October, per CME's FedWatch Tool.

What could change the picture: Thursday's Trump-Xi summit and whether it extends the US-China trade truce or touches on AI policy, and how far Fed officials go in signaling additional hikes after Tuesday's round of hawkish commentary.

SECTOR PERFORMANCE

WINNERS & LOSERS

Top 5 Gainers (across S&P, Nasdaq, Dow):

• Monolithic Power Systems (NASDAQ:MPWR): +8.06%
• Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP): +7.12%
• SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK): +6.82%
• Astera Labs (NASDAQ:ALAB): +6.67%
• Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN): +6.38%

Top 5 Decliners:

• Gen Digital (NASDAQ:GEN): -6.38%
• GoDaddy (NASDAQ:GDDY): -6.23%
• Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL): -6.14%
• Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW): -6.11%
• Allstate Corp (NYSE:ALL): -5.50%

Note: chip, memory, and power-semiconductor names dominated gainers, while brokerages, cybersecurity, and travel-linked names led decliners as investors reassessed rate-sensitive and Muse-exposed businesses.

AFTER-HOURS MOVERS

Gainers:

• TriSalus Life Sciences (NASDAQ:TLSI), +13.59% after hours: Shares jumped after the company received FDA 510(k) clearance for TriNav Advance, the newest addition to its Pressure-Enabled Drug Delivery portfolio, adding access to small, distal vessels for liver embolization procedures. CEO Mary Szela said the device will "catalyze further adoption" across a broader range of procedures, with a limited market release planned over the coming weeks.
• Worthington Industries (NYSE:WOR), +15.86% after hours: Shares surged following a strong fiscal Q1 earnings beat, with adjusted EPS of $0.82 topping the $0.75 consensus and revenue of $343.9 million exceeding the $331.3 million estimate, marking a sharp rebound from the prior quarter's miss.

Decliners:

• InnovAge Holding Corp (NASDAQ:INNV), -10.84% after hours: Shares sank after the company launched a secondary offering of 10 million shares by funds affiliated with Apax Partners and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, alongside mixed Q4 2026 results in which EPS missed by a penny despite a return to GAAP profitability and revenue beating consensus. J.P. Morgan reiterated a Sell rating with a $10 target, while KeyCorp raised its target to $14 with an Overweight rating.
• Voyager Technologies (NYSE:VOYG), -6.74% after hours: Shares slid after the company announced a proposed $350 million private offering of convertible senior notes due 2032, with an option for an additional $52.5 million, as investors reacted to dilution and hedging dynamics typical of convertible note deals.

COMMODITIES & RATES

US TREASURY YIELDS

TOP STORIES: US

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) unveils new Snapdragon chips built for on-device AI. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips, built on TSMC's 2-nanometer process, will power premium phones from Motorola, Xiaomi, and ZTE and compete with Apple's A20 Pro. CEO Cristiano Amon said the industry is moving "from what is a very phone-centric model to now an agentic-centric model," as the broader smartphone market is expected to shrink 14% in unit shipments this year amid soaring memory costs.

Anthropic and OpenAI unveil cheaper AI models as competition intensifies. OpenAI introduced GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna at prices 50% below GPT-5.6 promotional levels, while Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5, which the company said will cost around 40% less to run than Opus 5. Both labs face growing pressure from cheaper open-weight competitors including Alibaba, Moonshot AI, and DeepSeek.

Trump's ethics filing shows over $1 million purchases in Marvell, Salesforce, Intuit, and Church & Dwight. The filing also recorded sales of up to $25 million each in Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and $1 million to $5 million sales in Intercontinental Exchange, Oracle, Costco, and McDonald's. The Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) purchase comes as the software company targets more than $63 billion in fiscal 2030 revenue.

US, Denmark, and Greenland sign security agreement, ending months of tension. The deal lets the US establish two new military bases in Greenland and expand its existing Pituffik Space Base, while barring investors from outside NATO, NATO-partner, or EU states from controlling sensitive Greenlandic sectors. The agreement respects Greenland's right to self-determination and requires approval from both the Greenlandic and Danish parliaments before taking effect.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) gives DARPA on-site access to its Majorana 2 quantum computing hardware. The new research center in Maryland marks a shift from remote to physical access for the defense research agency, which is evaluating whether any quantum computing approach can yield economically viable systems by 2033. Microsoft has said it plans to have commercial quantum systems ready by 2029.

Also today: India's National Stock Exchange drew more than $10 billion in bids for its $2.3 billion IPO, the country's largest listing this year; Alibaba unveiled a new AI chip and plans to expand its cloud data center capacity to more than 20 gigawatts by 2032; and Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said US economic conditions "are, if anything, firming," with inflation risk broadening beyond energy and tariffs.

TOP STORIES: GLOBAL

Trump warns UN General Assembly he could "annihilate" Iran absent a deal. The president's remarks came as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian addressed the same assembly, with world leaders gathered in New York this week for talks centered on the Middle East, Ukraine, and AI risks. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is skipping the New York gathering in favor of one-on-one talks with Trump in Washington on Thursday.

EU advances "Made in EU" industrial rules, raising stakes for UK carmakers. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham pushed for the UK to be treated as a "trusted partner" under the bloc's proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, warning that exclusion could damage Britain's car industry and an €80 billion trading relationship. The rules would require EV makers selling into EU public procurement to assemble vehicles in the bloc and source 70% of non-battery components there, with France pushing for stricter limits on which non-EU countries qualify and Germany striking a more cautious tone.

Lula warns against foreign interference in Brazil's October election at UN address. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil would not allow "internal and external enemies of democracy" to undermine the vote, in remarks widely seen as aimed at both Washington and right-wing challenger Flavio Bolsonaro. Lula also rejected US designation of Brazilian gangs as terrorist organizations, saying the country needs "cooperation to stem the flow of weapons and money that fuel crime," not foreign intervention.

MANAGEMENT & FED SPEAK

Cristiano Amon, CEO, Qualcomm, on the shift to agentic AI:

"We're going into this transition from what is a very phone-centric model to now an agentic-centric model for new experiences."

Tom Barkin, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, on last week's rate hike:

"The risks to inflation outweigh the risks to maximum employment. That's why we raised rates."

CORPORATE ACTIONS & EARNINGS CALENDAR

Top Ex-Dividend Companies for Wednesday, September 23:

Upcoming Earnings (Wednesday, September 23):

IPO Calendar (Wednesday, September 23):

Economic Calendar (Wednesday, September 23):

That's the wrap for today. Attention now turns to Thursday's Trump-Xi summit in Washington, further Fed commentary on the odds of an October rate hike, and whether the AI rally can broaden back out after Tuesday's rotation into rate-sensitive names.