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EconomyGlobal markets

Dow holds 1% gain at midday as oil sinks 7%, Oracle slides on $20 billion fundraising plan

Wall Street kept most of its rebound into the New York lunch hour on the eve of the midterms, while gold climbed back towards $4,000 and traders braced for a Fed rate rise in December.

From the editorial desk · New YorkPublished
The Wall Street sign outside the New York Stock Exchange (file photo)
The Wall Street sign outside the New York Stock Exchange (file photo)Photo: Carlos Delgado / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Key points

  1. The Dow was up about 1% near 52,300 in the middle of the New York session.
  2. Oracle fell about 6% after it planned to raise $20 billion in shares and bonds.
  3. Gold rose nearly 2% to about $3,971 an ounce as US crude fell more than 7%.

Wall Street held on to most of its rebound into the middle of Monday’s session in New York, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up about 1% as oil kept sliding on hopes of a deal to end the war with Iran. Investors are taking a breath before Tuesday’s midterm elections.

By about 12:30 pm in New York, around 11 pm IST, the Dow was up 0.99% at 52,282.62. The broader market had given back part of its early gains. The S&P 500 was up 0.38% at 7,609.11 and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.35% at 25,526.11, after both had been up more than 1% in the first hour.

Technology shares were the drag. Oracle fell about 6% after setting out plans to raise $10 billion in new shares and another $10 billion in bonds to pay for artificial intelligence data centres. The plan came days after the company raised its spending targets, and it fed fears that big technology firms are spending too much on the AI build-out. Amazon went the other way, rising more than 4% as investors looked again at its record cloud growth.

Oil set the tone. US crude for December was down 7.24% at $96.58 a barrel, and Brent was near $105. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Trump wants to end the conflict “diplomatically”. Airline shares soared on cheaper fuel, with United up almost 7%, while ExxonMobil slipped more than 2%.

Gold bounced back after its fall below $4,000 in Asian trade, climbing 1.86% to about $3,971 an ounce.

Interest rates are the other worry. Futures traders now see a 76% chance of a Fed rate rise in December, from the current range of 3.75% to 4%. Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, said one model suggests “the Fed would need to raise the Fed funds rate by about 275 basis points.”

For India, a big fall in crude is good news for the import bill and the rupee. Dalal Street will take its cue on Tuesday from how New York closes and where oil settles.