S&P 500, Nasdaq Hit Records on AI Stocks and Falling Oil

Cover image from thenation.com, which was analyzed for this article
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit records with gains led by Meta, AMD and other AI stocks after strong Muse AI adoption and falling oil prices.
PoliticalOS
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 — Business
Equity gains were driven by Meta’s Muse AI reception and lower oil prices after reports on the Strait of Hormuz; two of the four outlets supplied no coverage of these market developments.
What outlets missed
Two of the four outlets published no reporting on equity markets or AI-related stock movements at all. Mother Jones focused exclusively on its own copyright litigation against OpenAI and Microsoft. The Nation published an interview with a Texas gubernatorial candidate on redistricting. Neither piece referenced the Meta Muse launch, AMD valuation milestone, or oil-price decline that drove the session’s gains. The two Yahoo Finance items supplied the only market data and event attributions available for verification.
US equity indexes climbed to fresh highs Monday as enthusiasm for artificial intelligence applications outweighed concerns over energy costs. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both closed at record levels, with gains concentrated in technology names tied to AI development. Meta Platforms rose more than 11 percent after its Muse AI agent reached the top of the App Store rankings, while Advanced Micro Devices advanced nearly 10 percent to join the group of chipmakers valued above $1 trillion.
Market participants linked the moves to two concrete developments. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described preliminary US-China talks on technology cooperation as very successful ahead of a planned meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. At the same time, Brent crude fell more than 2 percent and West Texas Intermediate dropped 3 percent after reports that Iran might reopen the Strait of Hormuz within a week if the United States eases military pressure. Lower energy prices reduced input-cost worries for data-center operators that power large AI models.
Futures on the Nasdaq-100 opened Tuesday 0.1 percent higher and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 0.3 percent, extending the prior session’s advance. Asian indexes followed, with South Korean and Taiwanese technology shares posting gains. Earnings reports from KB Home and AutoZone were scheduled for later in a relatively quiet week for economic data.
The same factors that lifted US indexes also shaped trading elsewhere. A Reuters dispatch noted that global chip stocks climbed after Meta’s results and that oil-price relief helped sentiment in markets sensitive to energy costs. No major Federal Reserve speakers altered rate expectations during the session, leaving the immediate drivers centered on AI product adoption and commodity prices.
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