Market-moving news for Wednesday, September 23, 2026

What happened

On Wednesday, Sep 23, 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced via an @SecScottBessent post on X that the US and China agreed to extend their bilateral trade truce two months, through Jan. 10, after an unscheduled meeting in Washington with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. The announcement came as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Washington for a three-day state visit (Sep 23–25) — his first US state visit in 11 years, greeted by Trump and Melania with a 100-foot red carpet at Joint Base Andrews (first foreign-leader Andrews welcome since Obama greeted Pope Francis in 2015), a National Archives tour, pandas offered to Atlanta, and a 145-guest state dinner. Trump said only 'Good meeting. Great meeting, thank you' after Thursday's bilateral.

What happened

On Thursday, Sep 24, 2026, NY Fed President John Williams told the London Macro Policy Forum that 'it's likely that another rate hike may be appropriate by the end of the year. That seems to me a reasonable way of thinking about it,' calling inflation the 'big challenge' and saying the Fed has 'a lot of work to do.' Futures immediately repriced: the CME FedWatch-implied probability of a 25-bp October hike jumped to ~77.5% from ~53% a day earlier (Barron's/Dow Jones cited 75%, up from 71% Wednesday and 55% a week ago), with odds of two more hikes by year-end rising to 58% from 42%. The 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.446–5.447% — its highest since 2004 — and the 10-year reached 5.145%, its highest since 2007.

What happened

Following CEO Mark Zuckerberg's keynote on the night of Wednesday, Sep 23, 2026 at Meta's annual Connect developer conference in Menlo Park, CA, Meta shares were down about 2% ahead of the opening bell on Thursday, Sep 24, after rallying in the days leading up to the event. Zuckerberg unveiled new smart-glass models — including an audio-only Ray-Ban Meta Audio ($349, shipping Oct 13, the first camera-free pair) and the third-generation Ray-Ban Meta ($449, on sale now) — plus the $1,299.99 Meta VR Glasses (spring 2027, ~100g frames with a tethered compute puck, 5K Infinite Display) and the Muse Charm, a palm-sized/keychain AI pendant for the Muse personal AI agent shipping for the holidays. He also announced an FDA-cleared hearing-enhancement feature for the glasses and said Muse would evolve into 'personal superintelligence' used by billions.

What happened

On Wednesday, Sep 23, 2026, crude prices rose for the first time in six trading sessions. November WTI closed at $92.16/bbl, up $1.64 (+1.81%), and November Brent closed at $103.08/bbl, up $3.83 (+3.86%) — the Brent settle reclaiming $100 after one day below; intraday highs touched roughly $104.80 Brent and $93.35 WTI. Two drivers were cited: stalling US-Iran diplomacy after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's UN General Assembly speech reversed expectations for a diplomatic solution — he refused to yield to Trump's threats and called it unacceptable that Iran is denied shipping access to the Strait of Hormuz — and a Politico report, citing five sources, that the Trump administration is preparing a 90-day diesel export ban to lower energy prices ahead of the midterm elections. EIA data that day showed US crude inventories rose 2.969M bbl (vs. an expected ~600k-bbl draw) while gasoline inventories fell 1.686M bbl.