Pre-Markets Higher Despite Increasing Bond Yields

Friday, September 25th, 2026

In a big blow for advocates of lowering interest rates, bond yields continue to escalate in Friday’s pre-market. We normally don’t talk about the 30-year bond yield, but this has risen to 20+ year highs this morning: +5.480%. The 10-year yield is now +5.188% and the 2-year is up to +4.906%. These numbers are telling us that there are investment options beyond the equities market, presently.

Pre-market futures are in the green at this hour — +111 points on the Dow, +110 on the Nasdaq and +17 points on the S&P 500. The small-cap Russell 2000 is up +4 points on the final trading day of the week. This may have to do with lower oil prices overnight: $92 per barrel (/bbl) on WTI and $104/bbl on Brent crude. These are obviously still elevated levels compared to where we were earlier in this seven-months-long conflict in Iran, but perhaps enough for bullish investors to find their sea legs again.
 

Durable Goods Orders Outperform Expectations

The August print for Durable Goods Orders came in at 0.0%, which is unremarkable until you look at what had been expected: -0.3%. This follows an unrevised +1.1% from July. Ex-transportation, we see this figure buoy up to +0.3%, which is down from +0.7% the prior month. Non-Defense, ex-aircraft — a proxy for “normal” business spending — reached a surprisingly high +1.6%, more than triple the +0.5% analysts were expecting.

Shipments also improved month over month: -0.2% in August, from -0.9% in July. All these numbers represent an expected reversion from the prior month’s rather widely dispersed Durable Goods report. And despite projections for the first negative headline since May, this big-ticket-order metric shows the American economy on firm footing.
 

What to Expect from the Stock Market Today and Next Week

After the opening bell, the final read on the University of Michigan Consumer Survey hits the tape. The preliminary report showed a dire 47.8, down from 51.7 the prior month. This is the lowest print since May’s all-time-low 44.8, as personal finances project weaker and business finances, while steady, are well below historic levels.

This report does not use the 50 level as a demarcation point between growth and loss. Rather, it is normalized against a baseline of 100, which means we are well off norms in terms of consumer outlook. Even our near-term high — July’s 55.2 — is on the low end of this well-regarded consumer survey.

Next week is “Jobs Week,” where JOLTS for August happen Tuesday, private-sector payrolls from ADP ADP are Wednesday, Weekly Jobless Claims are on their normal Thursday morning report schedule, and Friday brings us the Big Kahuna: non-farm payrolls from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Estimates currently vary pretty widely: while +162K new jobs are expected to have been created in September, only +38K are expected on the ADP private-sector read.

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