The Spark Board

S&P 500

7,663

down 1.2% on Thursday

It fell hard Thursday and finished the week essentially flat. The selloff was narrow, not broad: the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 2.6% while the equal-weight S&P rose 0.7% and the Dow didn’t move. This wasn’t fear of everything. It was a repricing of one thing: the AI bill.

10-year Treasury yield

4.96%

Back below 5% for the first time since September 23, after the biggest one-day drop since March 2023. When tech scared people Thursday, they bought bonds — hard. That is what a flight to safety looks like when it has somewhere to go.

30-year mortgage rate

7.32%

The weekly survey doesn’t update until Thursday, so this is the same reading as the debut edition: down from 7.40%, the first weekly decline since late August. A dip, not a trend — and pending home sales just hit a record low anyway.

Oil (Brent crude)

$113.17

a barrel

Up 4% Thursday, the highest settlement since May, on escalating attacks near Saudi Arabia. Expensive oil is a tax on everything that moves. It is also the reason gold fell and the Fed’s job got harder in the same week.

Gas, national average

$4.29

a gallon

Up 2 cents today, down about 4 cents on the week. The pump is running behind the oil market: cheaper winter-blend fuel is still doing the work, but $113 crude means relief at the pump has a ceiling.

Gold

$4,043

an ounce

Down 2.1% Thursday, the lowest since early August. Gold is supposed to be the market’s insurance policy, but Thursday’s selloff came with oil-driven inflation worries — the one kind of trouble that makes gold’s job harder, because it points to higher rates.