Bull Market Turns Four as Wall Street Opens a High-Stakes Week of Bank Earnings, CPI and Oil Jitters

The bull market in United States stocks turned four years old on Monday, closing out a rally that has lifted the S&P 500 nearly 120 per cent from its bear-market low on 12 October 2022, according to CNBC. The milestone arrived quietly: American share markets were open for Columbus Day while the bond market was shut, and trading began in a week stacked with events that investors say will decide whether the run earns a fifth year.

The session itself was mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed modestly higher, gaining roughly 0.3 to 0.4 per cent, while the S&P 500 drifted around the flat line and the Nasdaq Composite finished lower, down between 0.1 and 0.5 per cent depending on the point of the session, according to Investopedia, MarketWatch and Morningstar. Equities traded on a normal schedule on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, which do not close for Columbus Day, even as the United States bond market was closed for the federal holiday on the recommendation of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Investopedia reported.

The muted moves followed a winning week for Wall Street. On Friday, the Dow rose 423.31 points, or 0.8 per cent, to close at 51,654.95; the S&P 500 gained 46.18 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 7,811.54; and the Nasdaq Composite added 172.83 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 27,366.17, according to the Geneva Times. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq closed Friday at record highs. For the week as a whole, the Dow gained 0.9 per cent, the S&P 500 rose 1.2 per cent and the Nasdaq added 0.6 per cent — its fourth consecutive weekly gain, according to Investopedia.

The scale of the four-year run is difficult to overstate. Barron's reported that the S&P 500's bull market was entering its 1,001st trading day on Monday and that the rally had added nearly 40 trillion dollars in market value. The S&P 500 has now posted seven consecutive quarters of double-digit earnings growth, and analysts tracked by Bloomberg Intelligence expect third-quarter profits to be roughly 25 per cent higher than a year earlier, according to the Rivkin Report's morning market wrap.

But what is driving the market now looks very different from what powered its first three years, market watchers say. Garrett Melson, a portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions, told MarketWatch that the big difference between this October and last year is "the combination of the AI trade coupled with the rate shock" — a pairing of artificial-intelligence enthusiasm with sharply higher borrowing costs.

The evidence of that tension was visible across Monday's session. The tech-focused Nasdaq underperformed as chip stocks stayed weak, with the United States bond market's absence removing a key driver of stock movement, Barron's reported. Memory-chip maker Micron fell 3.1 per cent and SK Hynix declined 3.7 per cent after Chinese rival CXMT said it had made progress on a competing memory design, Barron's said. Treasury cash markets were closed, but electronic Treasury futures were trading, with yields holding near multi-year highs after easing late last week.

The 10-year Treasury yield — the benchmark for a wide range of interest rates — closed around 5.24 per cent on Friday, two days after briefly touching nearly 5.37 per cent, its highest level in more than 24 years, according to Investopedia. That yield spike is the backdrop for everything investors are watching this week.

Earnings season kicks into high gear on Tuesday, when several of the biggest United States banks report. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are all scheduled to issue third-quarter results, with Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth Group also reporting before the opening bell, according to Investopedia. Analysts forecast close to 19 billion dollars in combined equities-trading revenue for the major banks, led by Goldman Sachs at about 5.1 billion dollars, Bloomberg Intelligence data cited by the Rivkin Report showed.

Investors will also focus this week on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' September Consumer Price Index reading on Wednesday morning and the wholesale Producer Price Index data on Thursday, Investopedia reported. The inflation figures will feed directly into the Federal Reserve's interest-rate decision later in October, Barron's noted, making the data the week's other make-or-break event.

Energy markets added a geopolitical overlay to Monday's trading. Oil prices rose as investors weighed word from Saudi Arabia that it had intercepted more missiles and drones launched from Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, following deadly weekend attacks on Riyadh's international airport, where operations remain suspended, Investopedia reported. United States benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained about 2 per cent to 93.84 dollars a barrel in afternoon trading, while front-month Brent crude futures, the international benchmark, were up 1.9 per cent to 106.75 dollars, Investopedia said. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an "energy ceasefire", while he also suggested the United States may join Saudi Arabia in strikes on the Houthis, according to Investopedia.

Overseas, European shares were firmer. The CAC 40 in Paris ended Monday up 0.4 per cent and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt rose 0.8 per cent, Morningstar reported, while Brent oil was quoted at 106.60 dollars a barrel in London trading, up from 104.86 dollars late on Friday. Gold was quoted at 4,167.84 dollars an ounce, Morningstar said.

A separate pressure point surfaced in consumer data. United States consumer sentiment fell in early October, with views on current conditions hitting a record low as petrol prices stayed high, borrowing costs rose and hiring slowed, the Rivkin Report said. That sits uneasily beside a stock market within reach of its all-time highs — a reminder that the equity rally and household confidence are reading from different scripts.

Delta Air Lines illustrated the corporate side of the same squeeze last week, cutting its full-year earnings outlook on elevated jet fuel prices, the Rivkin Report said. For airlines and other fuel-heavy businesses, Brent above 105 dollars is not a headline but a margin problem.

One more market-structure note caught analysts' attention on Monday. The narrowing of stock participation — fewer shares carrying the advance into early October's record highs — has concerned some investors, MarketWatch reported. Melson cautioned against treating that as an automatic sell signal, arguing that breadth tends to catch up with price as sidelined investors rotate into laggards. John Rizzuto of GammaRoad, quoted by MarketWatch, said weakness in breadth and defensive rotation suggested investors were becoming more cautious about the economic outlook, even if underlying growth measures had not turned decisively bearish.

So Monday's fourth birthday ended not with celebration but with a to-do list: bank results on Tuesday, inflation on Wednesday and Thursday, a Federal Reserve decision later in the month, and an oil price that has geopolitics written all over it.

Analysis: Why It Matters

Four-year bull markets are not unusual. Four-year bull markets that keep climbing while the 10-year Treasury yield sits at a 24-year high are rarer — and that is what makes this birthday worth pausing over. The usual script says high borrowing costs strangle equity multiples. The current script says earnings growth has been strong enough to carry the market anyway: seven straight quarters of double-digit gains, with analysts expecting roughly 25 per cent profit growth for the third quarter. The tension between those two facts — dear money and rich earnings — is the entire story of this market right now.

The composition of the rally has changed, and the change matters. In its first three years the bull market was a story of recovery and then of artificial intelligence lifting a broad swath of mega-cap technology shares. Now, strategists say, the AI trade is colliding with a rate shock, and leadership is narrowing to a smaller cast of winners. The concern about market breadth is really a concern about fragility: a rally carried by fewer names has further to fall if one of them stumbles. The optimists' counter is that narrow leadership is a normal late-stage feature and that breadth tends to repair itself as money rotates into laggards. Both camps are watching the same data; neither has a monopoly on how it resolves.

Bank earnings matter this week for a reason that has nothing to do with banking. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo are economy-reading instruments: their trading revenue tells you about market activity, their loan books tell you about credit quality, and their executives' commentary tells you what chief financial officers are thinking about hiring, investment and risk. Clark Bellin, president and chief investment officer at Bellwether Wealth, told Barron's that the big banks tend to set the stage for the rest of earnings season because they reveal the underlying economy — and he described this as one of the most important earnings seasons, with investors wanting confirmation that the earnings picture is still intact. If the banks report strong interest margins and robust investment-banking activity, it validates the earnings story that has carried this bull market. If credit quality wobbles, the market will read it as a warning about the consumer the sentiment data is already flagging.

Then there is the inflation tiebreaker. Wednesday's Consumer Price Index and Thursday's producer-price data arrive with the Federal Reserve's October decision on the calendar. A hot reading would reinforce the "higher for longer" logic that pushed the 10-year to 5.37 per cent — a yield that, sustained, reprices everything from mortgages to corporate debt to the discount rates underpinning equity valuations. A cool reading would let the market dream about the rate-cutting cycle resuming. The bond market, closed on Monday, will have plenty to say on Tuesday through Thursday.

The oil dimension is the wildcard that no earnings model prices cleanly. Brent above 106 dollars, Riyadh's airport still shut, an American president talking about joining strikes on the Houthis and floating an "energy ceasefire" between Russia and Ukraine — this is geopolitics intruding directly into the inflation outlook. Energy is both a component of the CPI the Fed watches and a tax on every business that moves goods. If the Houthi campaign against Saudi infrastructure persists, oil becomes the variable that can spoil both the inflation data and the earnings story at once.

Finally, there is the psychological layer. A bull market's fourth birthday is when late-cycle anxiety typically peaks: every new high feels borrowed, every dip feels like the beginning of the end. Strategists quoted this week acknowledged the challenge of reaching a fifth birthday, pointing to the AI-bubble question, elevated yields and geopolitical risk. Birthdays do not move markets — but the self-awareness they produce does, because it makes investors quicker to sell the news they have been waiting to fear.

What to Watch Next

1. Big-bank results on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo report before the bell. Watch net interest margins, trading revenue against the roughly 19-billion-dollar industry expectation, credit-loss provisions and executive commentary on the economy. Johnson & Johnson and UnitedHealth also report.
2. September CPI on Wednesday. The Consumer Price Index lands at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. With the 10-year near 5.24 per cent, even a small upside surprise could push yields back toward last week's 24-year high of 5.37 per cent.
3. Producer prices on Thursday. The wholesale inflation reading is the week's second data point and the last major one before the Federal Reserve's late-October meeting.
4. Oil and the Riyadh situation. Brent ended Monday around 106 dollars. Any escalation in Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure — or United States involvement — would feed straight into energy prices and inflation expectations.
5. The breadth question. Whether market participation widens or keeps narrowing into the year's end will tell investors whether this is a healthy rotation or a rally running out of names.

Sources

• MarketWatch — The bull market is turning 4 years old — but yields could crash the party
• Barron’s — Markets Cautious Ahead of Crunch Earnings. Inflation Can Still Ruin the Party.
• Investopedia — Stock Market Today: Dow Rises, Nasdaq Slips to Start Big Week of Earnings
• Morningstar (Alliance News) — London Market Close: Stocks up ahead of US earnings but oil stays high
• The Rivkin Report — Morning Market Wrap, 12 October 2026
• CNBC via BizToc — The bull market turned 4 years old on Monday