Wall Street closes slightly higher on Thursday: 10-year bond yield pulls back from a 24-year record

Wall Street closed on Thursday, October 1, 2026, in positive territory in a choppy trading session, as U.S. Treasury bond yields pulled back from multi-year highs and investors’ fears of another Federal Reserve interest rate hike this month faded significantly, as the Wall Street Journal reports.

The S&P 500 index climbed 14.91 points, or 0.19 percent, closing at 7,666.45 points and ending a three-day losing streak. Information technology, the index’s largest sector, gained 0.8 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 20.51 points, or 0.04 percent, to 50,926.56 points, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 10.53 points, or 0.04 percent, to 26,871.60 points, according to MarketWatch.

The main impetus came from the bond market: the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds fell to 5.233 percent, a daily drop of 0.059 percentage points — the largest in more than a month — after earlier in the session touching a 24-year intraday peak near 5.34 percent. The 30-year bond yield also pulled back to 5.6302 percent, after its highest level since June 2002, while the 2-year yield, the most sensitive to monetary policy, fell for the third straight session to 4.785 percent.

Investors were also calmed by signals from the central bank: Federal Reserve Governor Philip Jefferson said at an event in Virginia that the Fed may need more time to assess the state of the economy before further policy moves, echoing New York Fed President John Williams earlier in the week. According to CME FedWatch data, the probability that the Fed will raise its interest rate in October fell on Thursday below 25 percent, from 68 percent at the start of the week.

The market was also supported by chip stocks, which rose sharply after Micron Technology’s strong quarterly results, taking the technology sector to the top of the day’s gainers.

In energy markets, U.S. oil rose 2.7 percent to $92.87 a barrel, while Brent climbed 4.4 percent to $102.31, after the Pentagon sent the third carrier strike group to the Middle East, while President Donald Trump is considering resuming strikes on Iran.