Stocks Snap Their Skid on Friday, but the Holiday-Shortened Week Still Ends Lower After August CPI

by Jonathan Mercer · September 11, 2026

Chief Markets Correspondent, US Market Current

US equities ended a holiday-shortened week with a broad advance Friday, but the bounce was not enough to rescue the week. The Associated Press market table published for Friday, 9/11/2026 put the S&P 500 at 7,656.98, up 0.9%; the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 52,573.29, up 1%; the Nasdaq composite at 26,333.04, up 1%; and the Russell 2000 at 2,903.94, up 0.4%.

The same AP table showed every one of those benchmarks lower across the week. The S&P 500 gave up 0.8%, the Dow 1.6%, the Nasdaq 0.7% and the Russell 2000 2.4%. Year to date, the table listed the S&P 500 up 11.9%, the Dow up 9.4%, the Nasdaq up 13.3% and the Russell 2000 up 17%. Markets were closed Monday for the Labor Day holiday, a session the Treasury Department's own daily yield file marks as a holiday, leaving four trading days in the week.

Friday's advance interrupted a run of declines. A Yahoo Finance markets page bylined 4:22 a.m. EDT Friday — a live-updating file whose headline changed over the course of the session — described the three major indexes in its premarket text as having extended their losing streak to four days and as being on pace for weekly declines. The note accompanying the AP table said stocks recovered as oil prices eased off their recent spurt, with Brent crude down nearly 3%, and that an inflation report which met economists' expectations also supported the rebound, with market participants anticipating a Federal Reserve rate increase.

The inflation data in question was the Bureau of Labor Statistics' August Consumer Price Index, released Friday morning. The BLS summary states that the CPI for All Urban Consumers increased 0.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in August after rising 0.1 percent in July, and that over the last 12 months the all items index increased 3.4 percent before seasonal adjustment — the same 12-month pace BLS reported for July.

The composition matters more than the headline did. BLS reports that the index for energy increased 2.1 percent over the month, reversing July's decline, and states plainly that the index for gasoline rose 3.9 percent in August, accounting for over one third of the monthly all items increase. That contribution belongs to the all items aggregate — the headline index — and not to core, which by construction excludes both food and energy. Over the past 12 months BLS puts energy up 16.3 percent, due in large part to gasoline rising 27.4 percent over the same period.

Core inflation is where the report did its damage to the rate outlook. BLS reports the index for all items less food and energy up 0.3 percent in August after 0.2 percent in July, with the 12-month core rate at 2.4 percent, following a 2.5-percent increase over the 12 months ending July. A Charles Schwab market update published Friday, whose market figures carry an as-of stamp of 9:11 a.m. ET, noted that the 0.3% core monthly print came in "above 0.2% consensus" even as the annual core rate hit what Schwab described as a five-year low. Within core, BLS shows shelter up 0.3 percent after rising 0.1 percent in July, airline fares up 2.7 percent on the month and 23.4 percent over the year, medical care down 0.2 percent and motor vehicle insurance down 0.8 percent.

Rate-hike pricing moved hard on the release. The Schwab update cited the CME FedWatch Tool showing odds of a Federal Reserve rate hike at next Wednesday's decision rising to 88% after the CPI, up from about 71% late the prior day. Later that morning, a Quartz report stamped 13:29 UTC — 9:29 a.m. ET — put the odds of an increase at next week's meeting at 90%. Quartz does not name the pricing source behind that figure.

Collin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, said in the Schwab update that "The Fed is looking for confirmation that the disinflationary trend is back on track, and this report shouldn't give them that confidence."

The Treasury curve had already repriced before Friday. The Treasury Department's daily par yield file had not yet posted a row for 09/11/2026 when this article was compiled Friday evening, so the week's official move can only be measured through Thursday. On that basis, the 2-year par yield rose to 4.56% on 09/10 from 4.37% on 09/04, the 5-year to 4.75% from 4.54%, the 10-year to 4.95% from 4.78% and the 30-year to 5.37% from 5.24%. The 3-month bill-equivalent par yield went to 4.00% from 3.91%.

Crude was the week's other engine. A Reuters report carried by Yahoo Finance and bylined 6:53 a.m. EDT Friday quoted Brent at $105.98 a barrel, down $1.65 or 1.53%, and West Texas Intermediate at $101.12, down $1.36 or 1.33%. Those are intraday quotes the page itself stamps "as of 07:58 GMT" — nearly three hours before the byline — and not settlements. The same report said both benchmarks had gained more than 10% on the week after surging more than 6% on Thursday, citing Iranian attacks on ten ships near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday after the US targeted five Iranian oil tankers, and noting that vessel transits through the strait fell to seven on Thursday from 11 the previous day, well below the ten-day average of 15. Schwab's figures, as of 9:11 a.m. ET, showed WTI at $99.19, down $3.29 or 3.21% at that moment; the AP note put Brent down nearly 3% by the close.

Small caps bore the brunt of the week even after Friday's gain. The Russell 2000's 2.4% weekly decline was three times the S&P 500's, a pattern consistent with a week in which the front end of the curve sold off hardest. The index nonetheless still carries the largest year-to-date gain of the four on the AP table, at 17%.

The calendar now runs directly into the Federal Reserve. The Federal Open Market Committee's published 2026 calendar lists a September 15-16 meeting, marked with an asterisk denoting a "Meeting associated with a Summary of Economic Projections," meaning policymakers will publish updated forecasts alongside the decision; the committee is in its pre-meeting communications blackout in the meantime. BLS states that the September CPI news release is scheduled for Wednesday, October 14, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. ET, and the University of Michigan lists its final September consumer sentiment reading for Friday, September 25, 2026, at 10 a.m. ET.

Risks in both directions are unusually visible. Energy is supplying the bulk of the headline inflation impulse, so a de-escalation around Hormuz could pull the all items rate down quickly without changing the core picture — while a renewed disruption could do the reverse. Futures-implied probabilities are market prices, not forecasts, and have moved by tens of percentage points within a single session this week; they can move again on the Fed's own projections. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security.