Wall Street Wrap: Pre-Market, September 25, 2026

Futures rise as oil retreats on Iran diplomacy, capping a volatile week for yields

Wall Street heads into Friday's close on firmer footing, as easing oil prices and hopes for a Hormuz breakthrough offer some relief from a week dominated by surging Treasury yields.

Futures Snapshot

U.S. equity futures rose Friday as Wall Street heads into the close of a volatile week shaped by a surge in Treasury yields. The Dow is on pace for a fourth consecutive losing week, down 0.6% through Thursday's close, while the S&P 500 is tracking a 0.7% weekly advance and the Nasdaq is up 1.6% week-to-date.

What's Driving the Open

Futures firmed as two of the week's biggest headwinds eased slightly. Oil prices slid for a second straight session, with WTI crude down about 2% near $92 a barrel and Brent off roughly 1% near $104, helping sentiment after a volatile week. The 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields, which drove much of this week's selling after climbing to their highest levels since 2007 and 2004 respectively, were both last seen up only slightly at 5.183% and 5.478%.

The relief in oil tracked optimism that Iran and the U.S. may be nearing a diplomatic opening: Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi proposed reopening the Strait of Hormuz and resuming nuclear talks within seven days if Washington accepts Tehran's conditions, and Reuters reported Thursday that U.S. and Iranian negotiators in New York are weighing a phased agreement to end the conflict. Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM) led tech higher in the premarket on its Anthropic deal, with Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) and Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) also gaining in sympathy.

This week's yield surge was fueled by hawkish comments from Fed Governor Michael Barr, persistently high energy prices tied to the Iran war, and a stronger-than-expected purchasing managers' report; Fed funds futures now price a roughly 66% chance of an October hike. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed to 7.45%, its highest since 2024, a move Morgan Stanley economist Heather Berger said will weigh on consumer spending growth next year. Traders are also monitoring the tail end of Xi Jinping's state visit, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier in the week that the U.S. and China had agreed to extend their trade truce by two months.

What could change the picture: Confirmation of a phased Hormuz deal, or any softening in this week's rate-hike repricing, could extend today's relief rally; a setback in the Iran talks or another hawkish Fed comment would likely revive this week's yield-driven pressure on equities.

Overnight Markets

Asia-Pacific was mostly higher: Japan's Nikkei 225 closed 1.30% higher at 66,364.20, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.43% to 8,665. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was down 1.21% in late trade. Markets in mainland China and South Korea were closed for a holiday.

Pre-Market Movers

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) note: while not a new pre-market mover today, Oracle Japan's Tokyo-listed shares surged more than 7% Friday on record fiscal Q1 results (sales +13%, cloud revenue +31.7%), a sharp contrast to the U.S. parent's more-than-3% overnight drop tied to its New Mexico data center force majeure notice.

Rates, FX & Crypto

Commodities

Key Levels & Catalysts Today

Economic data

• Durable goods orders were flat in August, better than the -0.3% economists expected, following a downwardly revised +0.9% in July. Excluding transportation, orders rose 0.3%; excluding defense, orders rose 0.1%. Year-over-year, durable goods demand is up 7.7%.
• Investors will also watch today's University of Michigan consumer sentiment report.

Corporate

• Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM) — the $11.6 billion, seven-year Anthropic cloud infrastructure deal (with an option to expand to about $20 billion) also lifted peers Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) and Cloudflare (NYSE:NET) in premarket trading.
• Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) relaunched its Copilot app, combining coding tools with an agent-building feature, aiming to convert more of its 450 million-plus Office 365 seats — fewer than 7% of which currently pay for AI add-ons — into paying users. The company is shifting to usage-based pricing for its new Cowork, Code, and Autopilot features rather than its existing flat subscription model, as CEO Satya Nadella pushes to catch up with bundled offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.
• Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) unveiled $1,299 VR Glasses, launching next spring, alongside the Muse Charm, a handheld pendant device that lets users interact with Meta's Muse AI agent without unlocking a phone; Muse Charm is expected to ship by the December holidays, with pricing not yet disclosed.
• Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) — Tokyo-listed Oracle Japan shares surged more than 7% Friday on record fiscal Q1 results (sales +13%, cloud revenue +31.7%), a sharp contrast to the U.S. parent's more-than-3% overnight drop tied to its New Mexico data center force majeure notice.

Top Stories

Trump and Xi wrap up their Washington summit. President Trump called the talks "great," though the agenda was reportedly less substantial than the ceremony surrounding it. On his first state visit to Washington since 2015, Xi said the two countries "stand to gain from co-operation and will both lose in confrontation," calling for competition that is "healthy" and "kept within bounds." The two leaders were due to have tea Friday before Xi's departure, following Thursday's state banquet.

Iran proposes reopening Hormuz within seven days as regional tensions escalate. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about a fifth of global oil supply, would reopen within seven days and talks would restart if the U.S. accepts conditions he said mirror the collapsed June "Islamabad" memorandum of understanding. Vessel transits through the strait have fallen to just nine, according to preliminary ship-tracking data cited by Reuters. A White House official said Trump remains open to talks but that the U.S. has "little need to negotiate" given its position following the sanctions campaign and blockade. Tensions elsewhere in the region escalated regardless: Houthi militants fired dozens of missiles and drones at Saudi cities including Mecca, Jeddah, Yanbu, and Taif, with Saudi authorities saying they intercepted six ballistic missiles; Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan planned an urgent chiefs-of-staff meeting under their mutual-defence pact.

Xi urges AI cooperation with the U.S. In a Chinese state-media readout of the Trump-Xi meeting, Xi said "the two sides can continue their dialogue on AI, exchange views on its risks and benefits, and jointly prevent the misuse and abuse of AI," adding that "AI must be kept under human control" and should be "developed for the positive and for good." The comments follow Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's discussion of a US-China AI dialogue and incident-notification channel with counterpart He Lifeng, compared by some to the Cold War-era US-Russia "red phone." Both governments have separately rejected calls from OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei for AI-safety guardrails or a development slowdown.

Danish intelligence warns Russia could strike a NATO country within months. The Danish Defence Intelligence Service said there is a "low but growing risk" Russia could carry out limited strikes or deploy troops into a NATO member state, citing Moscow's greater willingness to take risks after more than four years of war in Ukraine. The warning follows a suspected act of sabotage at a Starlink ground station in Poland and comes alongside similar warnings from other European security officials. Separately, Finland and Sweden scrambled fighter jets to intercept Russian military aircraft over the Gulf of Finland, the first such interception for the two Nordic nations.

American mortgage rates cross 7% for the first time in nearly two years. Freddie Mac said the 30-year fixed rate rose past that threshold, driven by costly oil and high Treasury yields, complicating efforts to revive the stagnant U.S. housing market and adding to cost-of-living concerns that could weigh on Republicans ahead of November's midterm elections.

Eyes on any confirmation of a Hormuz breakthrough and today's University of Michigan sentiment data for whether this week's yield-driven selloff has more room to ease — or whether Fed rate-hike bets reassert themselves before the weekend.