Nasdaq closes at a record as traders put an 80 percent chance on a Fed hold

The Nasdaq Composite closed at a record on Monday, up 0.62 percent, as most of the largest technology shares rose. The S&P 500 added 0.39 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.13 percent. Treasury yields stayed near multi-year highs, and traders marked an 80 percent chance that the Federal Reserve will leave rates unchanged this month.

The split between the indexes is the session in one line. The Dow, heavier in industrials and financials, slipped. The Nasdaq, heavier in the firms that have carried this year's gains, made a new high. The S&P, which holds both, finished up. A record on one index and a loss on another is not a broad rush. It is a continuation of the trade that has already defined the year: large growth shares up, the rest mixed, the bond market unwilling to give the rally a cheaper discount rate.

CME FedWatch, which reads probabilities from interest-rate futures, put the chance of a hold this month at 80 percent. A rise in December is largely priced. That combination is tighter than the path markets were writing in the spring. A hold now and a rise before year-end means the next move, if the futures are right, is up, not down. Equity buyers who pushed the Nasdaq to a record did it with that path on the screen. They were not buying a cut.

Oil at $100 and a software bid on the same tape

Brent crude futures stayed near 100 dollars a barrel. The level is psychological and, this autumn, also physical. The Strait of Hormuz is shut under Iranian conditions, and the US-Israel war has kept a risk premium on Gulf supply. A stock market that can print a Nasdaq record while Brent sits on 100 dollars is telling two stories at once. One is that the largest technology firms are not priced off a tanker rate. The other is that the rest of the index, including the Dow's losers on the day, still meets the oil price in transport, chemicals and household costs.

Monday's single-stock surge was PTC, the Boston software firm, after Schneider Electric agreed to buy it for about 22.6 billion dollars, or 205 dollars a share. The offer is a 42.3 percent premium to the previous close and implies an enterprise value of 23.7 billion dollars. Schneider's own shares fell nearly 10 percent on concern about the price and about disruption to industrial software. Cerebras rose after OpenAI chief Sam Altman called the chip firm a close partner. Those two moves sat inside the Nasdaq gain. They are deal news and a partnership line, not a change in the Fed path.

The financing of the PTC bid shows where the cash is coming from. Schneider plans 5 billion to 6 billion euros of new shares under an existing authorisation, and 16 billion to 17 billion euros of new debt. It expects 250 million euros of annual cost savings by the third year and about 800 million euros of revenue synergies. Closing is guided for 2027. A buyer issuing that much debt while yields are near multi-year highs is paying up for software revenue it says will reach about 24 percent of group sales. The share drop is the market's first answer to that price.

For the session as a whole, the figures that will still matter on Tuesday are the 0.62 percent Nasdaq record, the 0.13 percent Dow loss, the 80 percent hold probability, and Brent near 100 dollars. The record says the growth trade is intact. The FedWatch number says the trade is being run against a possible December rise, not against a rescue cut. The oil price says the geopolitical premium has not left the commodity screen. Those three can stay true together. They did on Monday.