US Market Wrap 22 September: The Nasdaq Takes a Second Straight Record as Oil Slides a Fifth Day

By The Edge Research Team

The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.45 percent to a second straight record close, at 27,244.28, on Tuesday, per the network’s closing report, while the S&P 500 finished 0.06 points lower at 7,764.64 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 185.14 points, or 0.36 percent, to 51,863.69, as President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations and the barrel kept falling. WTI settled 1.24 percent lower at 94.59 dollars a barrel and Brent 1.09 percent lower at 99.25, a fifth straight day of losses per the network’s closing report, settlements that reached the wire after our commodities wrap published its 18:46 GMT snapshots, and the Treasury’s 2 year par yield fell 5 basis points to 4.71 percent while the 10 year held at 4.96.

A record on a flat tape, carried by the memory trade

The advance ran through one name, on the network’s own closing account. Sandisk gained nearly 7 percent after Rosenblatt initiated coverage with a buy rating and a 2,400 dollar price target, implying 36 percent upside from Monday’s close, with analyst Kevin Cassidy writing that “New AI compute platforms are creating an opportunity to reposition NAND Flash (NAND) from a commodity storage medium to a more system-critical component of AI infrastructure”, and the network’s closing entry credited that gain with supporting the record. The sector board split 5 against 6: materials led the 11 S&P 500 sectors at 1.90 percent higher, with consumer staples up 1.20 percent and information technology 0.63 percent, while financials fell 1.98 percent, the board’s deepest decline, and energy and communication services each finished 1.01 percent lower. In single names the blog carried Shopify up nearly 7 percent on its agentic checkout partnership with Meta’s personal AI agent Muse, pacing a two day rally of more than 15 percent, Viking Therapeutics up 31 percent in morning trading after its VK2735 obesity drug study showed 16 to 19 percent weight loss over 21 weeks, Lennar more than 4 percent higher after Berkshire Hathaway disclosed buying more than 2.7 million shares, and Royal Caribbean down more than 5.5 percent in late afternoon trading after a source told the network it is nearing a 3 billion dollar deal for a 50 percent stake in Sandals Resorts International.

A fifth crude loss, a diesel question and a front end rally

Oil did the macro work again. Crude moved lower after Trump said U.S. officials had a “very good meeting” with Iran’s delegation that lasted about three hours, per the network, and told the General Assembly he has a “big decision” to make on whether to pursue a deal with Iran or “annihilate” the country, saying he believes “we’ll make a deal right after the election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to”. The fuel behind the fuel got its own policy question: the administration is examining whether a diesel export ban is feasible to address record high prices, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, with Trump saying a decision would come “fast one way or another” and that “I’ve said let’s not send out the diesel. We make a lot of diesel”. The Treasury’s par curve moved at the short end: the 2 year fell 5 basis points to 4.71 percent and the 3 year 1 to 4.81, while the 5, 10 and 30 year held at 4.83, 4.96 and 5.29, and the blog had the 10 year yield edging higher intraday at 4.955 percent. Against that, Tom Garretson, senior portfolio strategist of fixed income strategies at RBC Wealth Management, said “I don’t think markets have fully appreciated what a rate hike cycle even with a higher yield environment might mean” and that “there’s quite a bit of complacency still priced into markets” on the 10 year moving above 5 percent, with a persistent risk the Fed “could certainly keep raising rates at least two more times”, potentially back toward 5 percent into early 2027, a week after the quarter point hike. Attention now turns to this week’s Washington summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with artificial intelligence, the Iran war, tariffs and rare earth metals expected among the key topics, per the network, and Treasury Secretary Bessent meeting Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of the visit. The Cboe Volatility Index fell 4.44 percent to 14.21 and bitcoin sat 0.22 percent lower at 86,292.70 dollars at our capture.

Top gainers

Top gainers, closes of Tuesday 22 September 2026 from the vendor feed, authoritative pull at 20:23 GMT with an index only confirmation pull at 20:24 GMT identical, ranked by change; every change reconciles against Monday’s closes as carried in the feed, whose Russell 2000 base of 2,875.36 prints 0.01 above our published Monday close, and the headline closes match the network’s written closing figures exactly.

Top losers

Top losers, same session, basis and capture as the gainers table, from the shallowest to the deepest; the S&P 500 row is a 0.06 point decline, minus 0.001 percent on the feed’s precise figure, rounded here to two decimals.

S&P 500 sectors

Top 3 and bottom 3 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors, closes of Tuesday 22 September 2026 from the vendor feed at the same 20:23 GMT capture, ranked; the two 1.01 percent declines are ordered by their precise figures, communication services minus 1.005 and energy minus 1.007.

US Treasury par yield curve

Daily par yields from the US Treasury’s own page, read at 20:29 GMT with the 22 September row posted; changes are ours by subtraction against the 21 September row, which matches our published curve exactly.

Commodities

Carried verbatim from our Commodities Wrap of 22 September 2026 on the basis it published: post settlement window snapshots at 18:46 GMT measured against Monday’s settlements as carried in the price feed, not the official settlements; the WTI row is the October 2026 contract on its last trading day per the exchange’s expiration calendar. The wire settlements, WTI 94.59 and Brent 99.25 dollars, reached the wire after that wrap published and are cited in the prose per the network’s closing report.

Instruments

One call at the same 20:23 GMT capture, fixed order; the VIX row is the session’s last print on its stated feed, a vendor snapshot rather than the official Cboe closing value, and the currency and crypto rows are snapshot levels on the vendor’s daily basis.

Asia reference

Carried whole from our Asia Market Wrap of 22 September 2026, closes of Tuesday 22 September on the vendor feed basis published there; the Taiex row is a record close per Taiwan’s Central News Agency as published, and Japanese markets were closed on the second day of their holiday, so the Nikkei 225 and Topix carry no session.

Middle East reference

Carried whole from our Middle East Market Wrap of 22 September 2026, closes of Tuesday 22 September on the basis published there, stacked gainers then losers; the Dubai change is the exchange’s own daily figure and the Qatar and Amman changes are our calculations, as published.

Europe reference

Carried whole from our Europe Market Wrap of 22 September 2026, closes of Tuesday 22 September on the basis published there; the DAX row is the exchange’s official closing price, and the Stoxx Europe 600 and Euro Stoxx 50 rows are the administrator’s 17:30 CET prints, checked against its finals at our next capture.

Why it matters: the tape went flat while its leadership narrowed to the memory trade, on our reading: one stock’s near 7 percent gain supported a second straight record close while the S&P 500 finished 0.06 points lower and financials took the board’s deepest fall, and the volatility index dropped 4.44 percent on our capture, a calm, narrow session. The barrel’s fifth straight losing settlement came alongside a curve move concentrated at the front end, the 2 year down 5 basis points with the 10 and 30 year unchanged, while the RBC line the blog carried argues the market is still underpricing the hike cycle, and the diesel export question puts policy inside the energy story. Across everything we published today, the day’s best index is Abu Dhabi’s FTSE ADX General at 1.25 percent higher and the worst Kuwait’s All Share at 1.03 percent lower, on our count, and the S&P 500’s three session run of gains ended by 0.06 points, on our count.

Outlook: Riyadh’s exchange is shut Wednesday for Saudi National Day and Tokyo’s cash equities reopen Thursday, when the Bank of Japan’s new rates take effect, and traders’ attention turns to this week’s Washington summit between Trump and Xi, per the network. Our commodities wrap tomorrow takes the November WTI contract as the front month, per tonight’s expiry disclosure, and for this board the question is whether a record the network credits to the memory trade broadens, with the RBC warning on the other side of the scale.

Sources: US Department of the Treasury, CNBC, The Edge.

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