Payrolls Cracked | Yields Still Rose | G7 to Release 100M Barrels | Bitcoin Gave Back $87K

The Nasdaq hit a new high. Most stocks aren’t there with it.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.19% to 27,190.86. Its intraday high of 27,353.68 was a record. The S&P 500 gained 0.74% to 7,723.49. The Dow added 250 points, or 0.49%, to 51,176.96.

Chipmakers did the lifting. Nvidia (NVDA) touched a 52-week high of $237.87. AMD (AMD), CrowdStrike (CRWD) and Palo Alto Networks (PANW) also set 52-week highs. The leaders climbed while the 10-year Treasury yield rose.

Only about 21% of S&P 500 members trade above their 50-day averages, Charles Schwab says. On the Nasdaq, 100 stocks set new lows against 35 new highs.

For the week, the Dow fell 1.3% and the S&P 500 0.3%. The Nasdaq gained 0.5%.

A Record Built by a Few

A record index can hide a thin market. A few chip and software giants carried the benchmark. Four in five members sat below their 50-day averages. They rallied as long yields rose, the setting that usually hurts them most. Until breadth widens, the record measures the size of the leaders more than the health of the market.

Governments moved 100 million barrels toward the fuel shortage. Brent recovered.

G7 leaders agreed to release 100 million barrels over four months. A "substantial" diesel release comes first, within 20 days. Members also pledged not to restrict energy exports to each other, easing fears of a U.S. diesel export ban.

Diesel took the relief. Heating oil futures, the U.S. diesel benchmark, touched $4.38 a gallon. They were still down 3.2% at 2 p.m. WTI settled down $1.76 at $91.11.

Brent did not follow. It fell as low as $98.43, then rallied over the trading day, settling down 6 cents at $102.25. The release doesn’t change the reality of Hormuz shipping.

The statement frames the release as part of commitments made in March, and it does not say how much is new. A third U.S. carrier group is also heading to the region, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A Diesel Fix for a Shipping Problem

The release treats a refined-fuel shortage, while crude still prices a shipping lane with little traffic. Diesel fell as barrels were promised within 20 days. Brent bounced back, and none of those barrels alter Hormuz. The gap between heating oil and crude over those 20 days is the first measure of how much relief is real.

September payrolls nearly took October off the table. December stayed on it.

Employers added 29,000 jobs against forecasts of 84,000 to 90,000. Unemployment rose to 4.2% from 4.1%. Revisions cut 60,000 from July and August, turning July into a loss of 10,000.

That leaves a three-month average near 51,000. Hourly pay rose 0.1% in September and 3.0% from a year earlier, the slowest pace since May 2021. The household survey was firmer, counting 406,000 more people at work.

Kalshi's October hike contract fell from 28 cents to 13 within two minutes. It then recovered to 19. Its hold contract reached 86 cents. Kalshi's December hike contract traded near 65 cents.

Bonds took the first hour, then gave it back. The 10-year yield fell to about 5.16%, then closed 4 basis points higher at 5.281%. The two-year rose 5 basis points to 4.839%. September consumer prices arrive in mid-October, before the Oct. 27-28 meeting.

December Kept Its Seat

Traders moved the next hike to December rather than cancel it. October odds collapsed within minutes, while the December contract stayed above even money. Even the two-year finished higher, so the price of money ended the day up. Weak hiring bought the Fed time, and September consumer prices now decide how much.

Tesla's deliveries beat every published estimate. Part of the beat came out of the parking lot.

Tesla (TSLA) delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter. That topped its own compiled consensus by 5.3%. Deliveries rose from 480,126 in the second quarter but fell 2.1% from a year earlier. The shares rose 4.7% to $370.59.

Tesla built 464,391 vehicles, so it delivered 22,141 more than it made. The gap was 28,368 in the second quarter. The first quarter ran the other way, so nine-month output and deliveries are roughly even. Energy storage of 13.7 GWh rose from a year earlier but missed forecasts by 14%.

Tesla needs about 311,000 fourth-quarter deliveries to top its 2025 total. It reports earnings Oct. 21.

Long-dated money kept arriving elsewhere. Ares Management (ARES) said Thursday it raised about $4.2 billion to finance other fund managers. Its target was $1 billion, and the total includes affiliated vehicles.

The Inventory Cushion

Selling from stock helped Tesla clear estimates two quarters running. With the first-quarter overhang worked off, that cushion is mostly spent. If the fourth quarter is to beat again, the cars have to come off the line. The Oct. 21 report on margins and inventory settles that.

Bitcoin rode the jobs report for about an hour, then handed the ride back.

Bitcoin climbed from about $86,400 to above $87,000 after the release. That was its highest since Sept. 23. Glassnode said sellers had partly filled, then pulled, the large block of asks near $85,000.

Then the 10-year yield turned higher. Bitcoin slid back below $85,000 and traded near $84,500 late Friday, down about 0.4%. Ether fell about 1.6% to near $2,660.

Crypto stocks made the same round trip. Coinbase (COIN) rose as much as 5.8%, then closed down 3.3% at $183. Strategy (MSTR) touched $170.17 and closed at $160.01.

Positioning was heavy going in. Futures open interest rose about $2.3 billion into the report, CoinGlass data show. On Thursday, BlackRock's IBIT took in $195.6 million while the rest of the spot funds lost $92.9 million. Friday's flows, published after the close, are the first test.

Two Ways Down

Friday's reversal had two plausible causes, and the tape did not separate them. A rising 10-year yield competes with an asset that pays no interest. Crowded futures and one-fund buying left thin support under the rally. That puts more weight on Friday's fund flows than on the hour above $87,000.

Friday moved the near term and left the long term where it was.

October hike odds collapsed, diesel fell and Tesla beat its quarter. The 10-year closed higher, Brent took a long road to finish flat above $102 and bitcoin gave back $87,000.

The Fed has time. Long money has not changed its price.

September consumer prices are the next test.