The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed lower on Thursday, October 8, 2026, while the Dow edged higher. Reuters’ full-session figures show oil benchmarks rose sharply and chip shares weakened, adding to inflation and financing concerns. Those developments formed the day’s market narrative, but the reporting does not establish that any single factor mechanically caused the declines.
How the major indexes closed
Reuters reported the following closing levels for the U.S. market session on October 8, 2026:
| Index | Reuters-reported close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,765.36 | Down 36.41 points, or 0.47% |
| Nasdaq Composite | 27,193.34 | Down 345.35 points, or 1.25% |
| Dow Jones Industrial Average | 51,231.64 | Up 51.77 points, or 0.10% |
The Nasdaq had the steepest percentage decline of the three indexes. The Dow’s small gain meant the session was not a uniform drop across large U.S. stocks. These are the later full-session figures in Reuters’ closing report, rather than preliminary numbers circulated earlier.
Why crude prices mattered to investors
Front-month West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled up 3.6%, while Brent settled up 4.1%, according to Reuters’ full-session report. The report linked the rise to supply concerns after attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and hurricane-related reductions in U.S. output.
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Higher oil prices can renew concern that energy costs will add to inflation, potentially keeping interest rates higher for longer or increasing the risk of rate hikes. Reuters described inflation and rate concerns as part of the market backdrop; that interpretation should not be mistaken for proof that oil alone drove the stock declines.
A separate Reuters report during the session described Brent futures up 4.2% to above $104 a barrel and the 10-year Treasury yield at 5.29%, near its highest level since 2002. Those were intraday observations, not the oil settlement changes or a closing yield. See Reuters’ intraday market report for that earlier-session context.
Chip weakness added pressure to technology stocks
Technology was the weakest S&P 500 sector in Reuters’ account, and semiconductor shares fell 3.4% as a group. Micron Technology dropped 4.8%, Broadcom fell 4.4%, and Oracle declined 5.5%.
Reuters connected the chip selloff in part to a Financial Times report that OpenAI’s annualized revenue was $20 billion below what the company had previously signaled. That revenue detail is attributed to the FT report as relayed by Reuters; it is not independently established by the closing report.
Financing concerns also weighed on sentiment. Reuters said the Wall Street Journal had reported that Broadcom was arranging $50 billion in financing for OpenAI, while Oracle was seeking an unspecified amount. The concern described in the report was that major technology companies’ borrowing needs could compete for capital—not a confirmed conclusion about the eventual cost or availability of financing.
What market breadth and volume showed
The declines extended beyond a handful of large technology names. Reuters reported that declining stocks outnumbered advancing stocks by 1.28 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange and by 1.33 to 1 on Nasdaq. U.S. exchange volume was 18.81 billion shares, above the 17.74 billion average for the previous 20 full sessions. Together, those figures indicate broad selling activity and higher-than-recent average volume, though they do not by themselves explain why investors sold.
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The session came as the market approached third-quarter earnings season. Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at US Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis, told Reuters that investors were anticipating earnings while the conflict in Iran was pushing oil higher. He also said that, year to date, equities’ path of least resistance had been upward. Those comments describe his assessment at the time, not a forecast or a guarantee about future market direction.
The day’s useful distinction is between the observed close and its reported context: the Nasdaq and S&P 500 fell, the Dow edged up, crude settled higher, and technology shares—especially semiconductors—were weak. Oil-related inflation worries and technology financing and revenue concerns were reported alongside those moves, but one session’s data cannot establish a single cause or predict what markets will do next.
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