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Wall Street Falls Before PPI

Stocks fell Wednesday as oil topped $100 and yields climbed ahead of PPI today and CPI Friday.

Author

Elie Zakhour
September 10, 2026

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Market News

Triple-Digit Oil, Triple-Size Buyback, Zero Relief

Wednesday marked a third straight losing session for U.S. stocks and the second decline in as many sessions this holiday-shortened week. The S&P 500 finished at 7,636.36, down 0.48%. The Dow lost 405 points, or 0.77%, to 52,380.66, while the Nasdaq fell 0.64% to 26,253.34. Small caps had it worst, with the Russell 2000 off 1.3%. Roughly three-quarters of S&P 500 stocks finished lower. Two sessions into the shortened week, the Dow is already down 1.9%.

Start with oil, one of the clearest sources of pressure. U.S. Central Command said it destroyed five Iranian crude carriers after Iran twice attempted ballistic-missile attacks on a U.S. Navy warship over the previous two days. Iran then launched 20 ballistic missiles toward a base in Jordan, 18 of which Jordan said it intercepted, and claimed attacks on 10 vessels near the Strait of Hormuz. Brent settled at $101.21, up 3.4%, its first settlement above $100 since July. WTI rose 3.25% to $96.05. Goldman Sachs warned Brent could exceed $120 if Gulf output remains severely impaired into 2027. Meanwhile, the SPR is down to 285.4 million barrels, its lowest since November 1982.

Then the bond market. Treasury said it would buy back up to $6 billion of 10- to 20-year Treasuries on Thursday, triple the size of its last long-dated operation, in a 20-minute window ending at 2pm ET. Traders had been expecting something larger, so the number landed as a disappointment and yields kept climbing. The 10-year hit 4.85% during the session and finished around 4.84%, its highest level since November 2023. The 30-year briefly crossed 5.3%, while the 2-year moved to roughly 4.43% from 4.39%. Mortgage rates were also elevated, with the average 30-year fixed rate at 6.85% for the week ending September 4.

Which brings us to the Fed. Futures now put roughly 62% odds on a 25-basis-point hike at the September 15–16 meeting, which would take the target range from 3.50%–3.75% to 3.75%–4.00%. Market pricing has swung sharply in recent weeks. Warsh said at Jackson Hole that better summer inflation prints hadn't shown that “underlying trends have meaningfully improved,” while three policymakers dissented in favor of a hike at the July meeting. August PPI lands this morning, with CPI due Friday, giving the Fed its final major inflation readings before next week's decision.

Inside the index it was pretty simple: oil names up, anything that depends on the consumer down. Exxon gained 2.2% and Chevron 1.9%. Amazon fell 1.8%, Starbucks 1.9%, Home Depot 1%. Meta was the big exception, up 6.6% on its Muse AI launch, and that looked like it came straight out of Alphabet, which dropped 2.3%. Apple closed down 0.3% after its first keynote under Ternus, where the foldable iPhone Duo got announced at $1,999 with an October 23 ship date.

Peel Take: The buyback thing was kind of funny, in a grim way. Treasury tripled the size of the operation to $6 billion, and the market basically shrugged. Druckenmiller argued a couple of weeks ago that governments defending prices against fundamentals eventually lose, and the fundamentals right now are hundred-dollar oil, a war that's severely disrupted a strait that normally carries roughly a fifth of global oil supply, and a Fed chair who continues to signal that inflation risks remain elevated. Hard to fight that with a checkbook. Anyway. The thing that actually matters this week is Friday. PPI this morning will get headlines, but CPI is likely the bigger swing factor for Warsh and the Fed, and if it's hot, the odds of a hike go materially higher.

What's Ripe

Signet Jewelers (SIG) 23.93% 

  • Adjusted EPS of $2.19 for Q2, up from $1.61 a year ago. Revenue was flat at $1.53B and same-store sales grew 2.2%. Gross margin came in at 39%, up 80 bps.

  • The full-year adjusted EPS guide went to $10.45–$12.15, from $9.20–$11.00. Comp guidance is now flat to +2.5%. Revenue outlook unchanged at $6.7B–$6.9B.

  • Signet also extended its credit deal with Bread Financial out to 2035 (it says the profit-share is worth over $1B across the life of the agreement) and announced a $125M accelerated buyback plus $385M of new authorization.

  • Peel Take: Nothing about the sales line changed. Revenue was flat. Comps were up 2%. And the stock went up 24% because earnings went up 36% on that flat revenue, which tells you the whole story is cost and margin rather than demand. Some of it was the Bread deal, some of it was $15 million in tariff refunds they won't get again, a lot of it was stuff they've been cutting for two years finally showing up in the numbers. At $102 you're paying about 9x the midpoint of the new guide, which is cheap, and it was cheaper on Tuesday.

Meta Platforms (META) 6.55% 

  • Meta launched Muse, an AI agent that runs as its own app and inside WhatsApp. It can browse, send email, manage your calendar, book trips, fill out forms and pay for things. There's a free tier, a $20/month tier and a $100/month tier.

  • Meta said in July that daily interactions with Meta AI had increased 60% since it rebuilt the assistant around Muse Spark.

  • Alphabet dropped 2.3% to $330.65 on the read that Muse goes straight at Gemini. Meta closed at $653.69, which is still $137 under its 52-week high of $790.80.

  • Peel Take: Some context for why a product launch is worth $40 a share. Meta's free cash flow last quarter was $784 million. A year earlier it was $8.55 billion. Capex guidance for 2026 is $130 to $145 billion. So for about a year now the stock has been a bet that all that spending eventually turns into something people pay for, and Wednesday was the first day there was an actual product with an actual price on it. 

What's Rotten

Casey's General Stores (CASY) 14.24%

  • Q1 FY27 EPS was $7.37 against consensus around $6.78. Revenue of $5.68B also beat. Net income was up 27% to $274M.

  • Inside same-store sales grew 3.2%, down from 4.3% a year ago. Same-store fuel gallons fell 0.3%. Fuel margin was 47.8 cents a gallon, up from 41 cents.

  • Guidance didn't move: inside comps +2% to +5%, fuel gallons flat give or take 1%, EBITDA growth of 8–10%, at least 120 new stores.

  • Peel Take: They beat by about 60 cents and the stock lost $104. Which sounds insane until you look underneath it. Fuel margin went from 41 cents to almost 48, helped by a volatile petroleum market, and that's not the kind of earnings driver investors want to underwrite forever. More importantly, inside comps grew just 3.2%, below the roughly 4.1% Wall Street expected, while guidance didn't move. Prepared food and dispensed beverages actually grew 4.8%, but expectations were high going into the quarter. Fine numbers. Apparently not $733 numbers.

Chewy (CHWY) 10.83%

  • Adjusted EPS of $0.36 was in line. Revenue was $3.33B, up 7.3%, a touch ahead of estimates. Active customers grew 3.8% to 21.7M and Autoship is now 84.6% of sales.

  • Free cash flow was $89.5M, down 15.5%, with capex up 71% to $47.9M. CFO Chris Deppe said the shortfall was "entirely timing-related."

  • The full-year sales guide moved up slightly to $13.46B–$13.57B from $13.40B–$13.55B, and the adjusted EBITDA margin guide went up 10 bps. Petco fell 5% along with it.

  • Peel Take: Look at the bullets again. Sales fine, customers fine, guidance went up. Free cash flow was the obvious weak spot, and the CFO says that's timing. But the market was looking for something stronger than “fine.” Organic sales grew 5.7%, gross margin was flat, and management is still seeing pressure on premiumization and discretionary pet spending. The pandemic pet boom is a long time gone, and Chewy is still investing heavily to take share and expand into areas like pet health. Investors apparently wanted more proof that those investments are accelerating the core business before giving the stock credit for them.

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