Industrials Leads While S&P 500 Advances

GDP Lands, Wall Street Barely Blinks

The final read on second-quarter GDP hit the tape at 8:30 ET Friday morning, arriving alongside the August PCE price index in what the economic calendar flagged as a high-impact morning. Neither report seemed to rattle traders much.

Stocks traded higher through most of the session, with the day's more notable storylines playing out in the bond market and in a handful of AI-driven corporate deals rather than in the growth data itself.

That's not to say the GDP print was ignored. It landed at a moment when the market was already digesting a wild week of Treasury yield moves, and stocks pushed higher anyway.

CNBC reported that the 10-year Treasury yield climbed to its highest level since 2007 on Thursday, driven by hawkish comments from Fed Governor Michael Barr, persistently high energy prices tied to the Iran war, and a hot purchasing managers' report. Against that backdrop, a GDP number that didn't spook anyone was arguably the quieter outcome the market could have hoped for.

Market Scorecard

Data timing: 2026-09-25 session; snapshot retrieved Sep 25, 2026, 4:04 PM EDT. Prepared Sep 25, 4:11 PM EDT. Sources: Yahoo Finance via yfinance (indexes and sector ETFs), U.S. Treasury Daily Par Yield Curve Rates, Yahoo Finance point-in-time crypto observations. Crypto values are timestamped point-in-time observations.

All four major indexes were higher in the late-session snapshot above, with the Dow posting the strongest percentage gain of the group. CNBC reported that the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq each notched weekly gains, even as the bond market delivered one of its more dramatic moves in years.

Bitcoin was the lone laggard on the scorecard, drifting lower while equities pushed ahead, a reminder that crypto and stocks aren't always reading from the same script.

Sector Performance

Industrials (XLI) topped the sector board, and Technology (XLK) wasn't far behind on a busy day for AI-adjacent names. CNBC reported that Akamai Technologies jumped after announcing a multiyear deal with Anthropic, while a separate CNBC report detailed a seven-year agreement between Akamai and the Claude chatbot maker to support Anthropic's accelerating compute demands.

MarketWatch reported that Microsoft shares were headed toward their highest close of the year as investors warmed to the company's AI narrative, and Reuters noted that Wall Street's climb came as investors bought AI-linked names.

Energy (XLE) and Communication Services (XLC) brought up the rear. The energy weakness came alongside a pullback in crude, which CNBC attributed to optimism that the Strait of Hormuz could be reopened after Iran asked the U.S. to return to the memorandum of understanding from June.

Communication Services finished at the bottom of the sector board. CNBC noted that Meta Platforms had rallied hard over the week on excitement around its Muse AI agent, a run that did not carry into Friday's sector reading.

Today's Economic Releases

Both releases landed right at the market open, and both carried a high-impact label heading in. Stocks pushed higher anyway, which suggests the data did not derail the tone that carried over from the week's AI and trade headlines.

That said, the bond market told a tougher story. CNBC reported that the 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields were at their highest levels since 2007 and 2004, respectively, with fed funds futures pointing to a meaningful chance of a rate hike in October according to the CME FedWatch tool cited in that report.

Another Fed rate hike remains a meaningful possibility given where futures markets are positioned. Friday's action also showed equities may still grind higher even with that risk on the table, and one data release won't settle where policy goes from here.

Looking Ahead

There's no confirmed economic calendar entry for the next session in hand, so the near-term setup leans on themes already in motion. CNBC reported that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said more details on U.S.-China negotiations would be released Monday, following Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's comments earlier in the week that the two countries agreed to extend their trade truce by two months. That headline could move sentiment early in the week.

Traders will also be watching Micron's upcoming earnings report, which CNBC noted could offer a read on the memory-chip side of the AI trade, an area BMO Capital Markets has argued remains in a supercycle.

With bond yields at levels not seen in years and another Fed rate hike still a live possibility, the tug-of-war between AI-driven equity optimism and rising borrowing costs could keep defining the tape.