Meta hits 778. The index only looks steady
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The index closed flat. Meta did the lifting
Thursday opened lower and closed almost unchanged. SPX opened 7667, high 7719, low 7663, closed 7704, next to Wednesday's 7706. The Nasdaq Composite closed 26939, flat. The Dow closed 51350, down 0.3%. The Russell 2000 closed 2836. IWM closed 282, still in yesterday's range. QQQ closed 741, flat.
It looks steady. Internals are not. Yields kept rising. Most sectors fell. Communications held the index up. Energy ticked higher. XLE closed 62.60, up 0.4%. XLF closed 54.53, unchanged. SOXX closed 566, unchanged. Strip out META and Thursday is a worse tape. It closed 778, up 4.5%, high 780, about 20 points from the all-time high. A flat index is megacaps holding the line, not the market having digested rates.
The 10-year is at 5.16%. The auction was still soft
The 10-year yield tagged 5.18% and closed 5.16%, five basis points above Wednesday's 5.11%. The 5-year closed 5.03%. The 30-year closed 5.46%. TLT closed 79.42, down 1.3%. VIX closed 15.67.
Equities did react. Most members still fell. The index only closed flat because the top of the tape carried it. The 7-year auction was soft: about a 0.7 basis-point tail, light indirect demand, and the 10-year pushed after the results. Wednesday's 5-year was worse. Auctions can spike yields for an afternoon. What matters is whether 5.16% holds. If it holds, growth keeps paying the discount rate. If it comes in, the index gets air. Institutions will not smash their own book here. The retreat stays orderly. Give it time and equities still pay for the higher discount rate.
Initial jobless claims printed 197k versus 201k expected, prior revised to 198k. The four-week average is 202k. Continuing claims 1.719 million. The labor market is still firm, so the Fed stays on inflation. New York Fed's Williams called another hike by year-end a reasonable way to think about it. Cleveland's Hammack said inflation risks remain tilted to the upside. Odds of another hike this fall have not faded. Some prints sit above 70%.
Meta jumped 4.5% on volume. 778 is inside the supply band
META opened 757, high 780, low 748, closed 778, up 4.5%. After Connect it added two more tools: Horizon Create and Horizon Studio. Text prompts can generate 2D and 3D games with levels and multiplayer, then publish into Facebook and Instagram feeds. Glasses, Quest titles, and hardware were the other Connect line. Thursday priced a grab for the gaming entry point, not just another up day in ads.
The daily RSI divergence repaired the strong way: volume-up, not dump-first. RSI is already overbought. Higher from here makes that worse. A pullback is due. 745 to 785 is medium supply. 778 is already inside the band. Supply is not heavy. That is not the same as turning immediately. Today's candle is a strong up day. Momentum is still on. Holders watch for stalling, rather than chasing a second leg at 778. A new high is the same rule: wait for the shape, then roll. Flat cash does not need the first clip at 778.
Google launches a test satellite. Amazon held 244
GOOG opened 334, high 339, low 333, closed 339, up 1.2%. The company will launch a prototype satellite next week, the first in-orbit test of Project Suncatcher, to see whether AI chips survive launch, radiation, and temperature in low Earth orbit. That is a research trial, not a data center moving to space this quarter. Ground permits keep slowing, which is why people even talk about compute in orbit. Volume was a bit above average. 298 to 346 remains the long accumulation band. The fundamental tape is not broken. The structure is not broken. Overhead is light. If it starts, it can start in a handful of sessions. This is waiting, not waiting to exit.
AMZN opened 246, high 250, low 246, closed 249, basically unchanged. Trendlines differ by a few dollars. The clean level is the September 16 low around 244. An open or close through 244 fails this breakout. Failure closes a fast-up window. It does not instantly rewrite a downtrend. 217 to 256 is still the long box. Today's low was 246. 244 held. Google and Amazon are both coiling. Size the position yourself. On a forward view, neither box is a bad long-term seat. Which name leads next is a different question. When the rotation is elsewhere, a coil is not a broken business.
Oracle invoked force majeure
ORCL opened 137, high 140, low 133, closed 140, down 3.5%. The morning was worse. The close took some of it back. Project Jupiter in New Mexico — a Blue Owl developer campus tied to OpenAI — got a force majeure notice from Oracle. Locals already fought the site on water, air, and power permits. Force majeure is the contract clause for delays outside your control. It can push payments out. The developer says the commitment is unchanged. Oracle's spokesman says the project is still on plan and they are confident in New Mexico, and did not explain the notice. Confidence and the notice on the same day do not match.
The problem is not one missed floor this week. If the campus cannot deliver compute on time, expected revenue slides and the financing already out the door carries more interest. CDS printed a record. The credit tape spoke before the stock did. The bounce from 133 to 140 is a washout snapback, not risk cleared. ORCL still sits in IGV. The path has already decoupled from software. It is a data-center delivery tape. Holders need to underwrite financing and delivery, not wait for a software multiple to mean-revert. The variance is too wide to argue that you must sit.
Costco cleared the print. After hours barely moved
COST opened 909, high 909, low 895, closed 896, down 0.9%. That was the cash session before the release. After the numbers, into the evening, the stock barely moved. Fiscal Q4 EPS $6.75 versus about $6.54. Revenue $95.7 billion. Net sales $93.9 billion, up 11%. Comps 9.4%, or 6.7% excluding gas and FX. There is a $0.15 tariff-refund one-off in the EPS. Strip it and profit still grew about 12%. Membership income rose 7.3%. Global renewal 89.8%. Growth is intact. The membership line is not the bright one.
The multiple is still rich. If institutions stay, 867 to 902 is the watershed for this tape. Hold it and the print is just another gate cleared, waiting for earnings to grow into the multiple. Lose 867 and 750 is the next look, about 13 points. No need to argue with that. A quiet after-hours tape only says the bid did not leave tonight. It does not make the stock cheap.
Watch two lines. If the 10-year sits at 5.16%, the index only looks steady. META watches whether 745 to 785 holds, and the 796 high. Oracle watches whether 133 was the shock low. Amazon watches 244. Costco watches 867.