--- title: "TRADING DAY-Easy does it, fresh peaks for Wall St" description: "Wall Street's three main indices reached new highs following a surge in U.S. jobless claims, which bolstered expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut. The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow all set records, " type: "news" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/256988502.md" published_at: "2025-09-11T21:00:00.000Z" --- # TRADING DAY-Easy does it, fresh peaks for Wall St > Wall Street's three main indices reached new highs following a surge in U.S. jobless claims, which bolstered expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut. The S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow all set records, while Oracle's stock price spike reignited discussions about a potential tech and AI bubble. The U.S. dollar weakened against several currencies, and the 10-year bond yield dipped below 4%. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank maintained its rates, signaling a balanced economic outlook. By Jamie McGeever ORLANDO, Florida, Sept 11 (Reuters) - TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist A surge in U.S. jobless claims to a four-year high on Thursday cemented investors’ bets for a Fed rate cut next week, weighing on the dollar and bond yields, and lifting Wall Street’s three main indices to new highs. For now at least, expectations of easy monetary policy are clearly trumping growth worries. More on that below. In my column today I look at how the extraordinary rise in Oracle’s share price on Wednesday has reignited the already fiery debate over whether U.S. tech and AI stocks are in a bubble. If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today. 1. Americans uneasy at Trump’s moves to expand presidential power, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 2. U.S. Fed looks set to resume rate cuts just as its peers are nearly done 3. ECB holds rates unchanged, still ‘in a good place’ 4. Traders see another ECB cut as increasingly unlikely after upbeat Lagarde 5. BOJ signals final phase of Ueda’s stimulus unwind - selling ETFs Today’s Key Market Moves - STOCKS: Record highs for the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow. Russell 2000 outperforms, up 1.8% to a new 2025 high. - SHARES/SECTORS: Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors rise. Warner Bros shares soar 29% and Paramount shares leap 15.5% on WSJ report Paramount is preparing a majority cash bid. Oracle retreats 6% after Wednesday’s surge. - FX: U.S. dollar slips again, euro rises after ECB decision and steer. Indian rupee falls to fresh record low. - BONDS: U.S. 10-year yield briefly dips below 4% for first time since April, 30-year auction is pretty well-received. - COMMODITIES: Oil slides around 2%. Silver rises 1% to a 14-year high of $41.76/oz. Today’s Talking Points: - The claim game The only debate now around U.S. interest rates, surely, is how fast they will come down. That’s the upshot from the shock jump in jobless claims figures, which trumped worries over slower growth and simmering inflation numbers - claims surged the most in a year to the highest level in nearly four years. Remember, a record downward benchmark annual revision to payrolls growth was announced earlier this week too. The labor market is clearly softening, but enough for a half-percentage point rate cut next week? That’s still an outside bet, but the probability traders are attaching to it is creeping up. - Fed vs the world The European Central Bank kept rates on hold at 2% on Thursday and bank president Christine Lagarde signaled its rate-cutting cycle is over, saying the bank remains in a “good place” and that risks to the economy have become more balanced. Traders agree. What’s more, other central banks are at or close to the end of their easing cycles too. Rates futures pricing suggests that, of the nine non-U.S. G10 central banks, only Canada’s is fully expected to cut rates 50 bps by the end of next year, three are unlikely to cut at all, and one - Japan - will raise rates. - Dollar doldrums The Fed’s relative dovishness - or playing catch-up with many of its peers, if you prefer - is weighing heavily on the dollar. While the broad dollar index isn’t making new lows right now, pockets of weakness continue to pop up. On Thursday the greenback fell to 2025 lows against the Australian dollar, Mexican peso, Brazilian real and Colombian peso. The last time the dollar was this weak against these last two currencies was June last year. Oracle surge pours fuel on fiery AI bubble debate The eye-watering surge in U.S. tech giant Oracle’s share price on Wednesday added fuel to a fiery debate: is the U.S. artificial intelligence stock boom a bubble destined to burst? This is a question that has dogged Wall Street for months, as AI euphoria has helped the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq hit new highs seemingly every day, swatting away the chaos and uncertainty surrounding tariffs, Washington politics and Fed independence. But Wednesday felt different. It’s not every day that one of the country’s biggest tech companies sees its share price skyrocket by as much as 43%. Oracle is not a penny stock, startup or meme stock. A surge of this magnitude should make everyone reassess where markets are, and whether this boom is moving into unsustainable territory. Below are five charts that suggest what former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan termed “irrational exuberance” may be engulfing AI and tech. 1. Oracle’s soaring valuation Oracle, the cloud computing giant, saw its stock trade at nearly 50x estimated 12-month forward earnings on Wednesday, the highest since the dotcom crash when its forward PE topped 120. Its share price rose as much as 43% on the day, causing it to virtually double since June. Oracle did say it expects cloud revenue to exceed half a trillion dollars and announced four new multi-billion contracts, so some optimism is warranted. But should the company truly be worth twice as much as it was only three months ago? 1. The Nvidia juggernaut Nvidia’s share price has doubled since April, rising an eye-popping 300% in the last two years. The AI chip superpower is now the world’s most valuable company with a market cap of $4.3 trillion, larger than every country’s listed stock exchange apart from the U.S., China, Japan and India, according to Deutsche Bank. Sure, Nvidia continues to churn out cash, but just two customers made up 39% of its revenue in the last quarter. Is that sustainable? 1. Record-high concentration The combined weighting of the top five companies in the S&P 500 is nearing 30%, higher than the ‘Nifty Fifty’ in the late 1960s/early 1970s and much higher than tech companies in 2000 before the dotcom bust. This doesn’t automatically mean we’re in a bubble, but the market is in unchartered territory and heavily dependent on a handful of companies - all of them in one industry. History suggests this level of concentration rarely ends well. 1. Lofty valuations The S&P 500 tech sector is nearing its most expensive levels since 2002 when the dust from the dotcom bust was still settling. Of course, this can be sustained as long as the cash keeps rolling in. But the amount of AI-related capex needed to develop the industry – an estimated $6.7 trillion worldwide by 2030, according to McKinsey - means the amount of cash that will need to keep coming in is enormous. When the bar is that high, even sound companies might struggle to meet it. 1. Stretched positioning Bank of America’s August fund manager survey showed that the most crowded trade in world markets currently is once again “long Magnificent 7”, according to 45% of those polled. A majority, 52%, say they see no AI bubble, suggesting this packed trade could get even more crowded before it unwinds. Investors have little incentive to go against this trade as long as it remains a winning one. But when a crowded trade reverses it can be sudden, and not everyone gets out the exit door in time. A lot of investors could lose a lot of money. What could move markets tomorrow? - Japan industrial production (July) - India inflation (August) - UK trade (July) - UK industrial production (July) - Germany inflation (August, final estimate) - Fitch reviews France’s credit rating - U.S. University of Michigan consumer expectations (September, preliminary) Want to receive Trading Day in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for my newsletter here. Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. Oracle’s super surge NVIDIA Outpaces Broader Market Long ‘Mag 7’ the most crowded trade - BofA survey Top 5 mega tech firms’ record concentration in S&P 500 U.S. tech valuations near highest since dotcom bust US unemployment claims (By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Nia Williams) ### Related Stocks - [ORCL.US - Oracle](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/ORCL.US.md) ## Related News & Research | Title | Description | URL | |-------|-------------|-----| | 期权热点｜周一 ORCL 大涨 9%，部分看涨期权飙升 575% | 美东时间 02 月 09 日，甲骨文期权总成交 482931 张，看涨期权占比 59%，看跌期权占比 40%。 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/275400548.md) | | 科技 IPO 预期升温，但华尔街的主战场已转向债市？ | 尽管 SpaceX、OpenAI 等明星公司 IPO 前景备受关注，美国科技资本市场的重心已实质性转向债务融资。为支撑 AI 基建，全球科技债发行规模预计今年逼近 1 万亿美元，Alphabet、Oracle 等巨头密集发债，Meta、亚马 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/275770702.md) | | 报道：AI 军事用途存分歧，美国国防部接近与 Anthropic 切断关系 | 报道称，双方关系破裂源于数月来围绕美国军方如何使用 Claude 工具的激烈谈判。Anthropic 特别希望确保其人工智能不会被用于大规模监控公民，或用于开发无需人类参与即可部署的武器。美国政府方面则希望能够将 Claude 用于 “所有 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276069534.md) | | 亚马逊年度营收首超沃尔玛，零售双雄加码 AI 竞赛 | 亚马逊取代沃尔玛，成为年营收最高的公司。沃尔玛周四公布，其最近一个财年的年度营收为 7132 亿美元，这略低于亚马逊的 7169 亿美元。两家公司在人工智能领域采取了不同的策略：亚马逊大幅加大了对人工智能的投资，而沃尔玛则更依赖技术合作伙伴 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276384959.md) | | 用 AI 模拟新加坡教师 随时随地帮学生加强数学能力 \| 联合早报网 | WizzTutor 联合创办人徐锦泉和张健伦利用人工智能技术创建了一个在线教育平台，旨在帮助学生随时随地提高数学能力。徐锦泉的创意源于他作为教师时发现学生深夜仍在学习的现象。WizzTutor 提供便捷的在线服务，学生只需使用 iPad 或 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276220565.md) | --- > **Disclaimer**: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.