Welcome back to PyUncut. Today’s session kicked off the week with a broad rebound on Wall Street, led by Big Tech tailwinds and an Apple-fueled sentiment pop. By the closing bell, stocks were green across the board, rates eased a touch, oil slid to five-month lows on supply worries, and crypto cooled after a weekend pop. Let’s break it down.

1) The Big Picture

U.S. equities rallied as investors leaned into megacaps and looked ahead to a busy earnings stretch. The S&P 500 climbed roughly 1.1%, pushing to within a whisker—about 0.3%—of its all-time closing high. The Dow added about 515 points (~1.1%), and the Nasdaq outperformed at around +1.4%. The tone was set by Apple’s surge and a modest pullback in Treasury yields, which eased some valuation pressure on growth stocks. (AP News)

2) Index Moves & Leadership

• S&P 500: +~1.1%, closing just shy of a record; breadth improved versus last week’s choppiness. (AP News)
• Dow Jones: +~515 points (~1.1%); industrials and staples held their own as cyclicals stabilized. (AP News)
• Nasdaq Composite: +~1.4%, paced by Apple and a handful of AI-adjacent names that re-engaged after recent volatility. (AP News)

Under the hood, tech leadership was clear, but financials also clawed back ground as last week’s worries around credit and fraud at some regionals faded a bit. (AP News)

3) The Drivers

Apple at all-time highs: Apple rallied about 3.9%, with enthusiasm around its latest iPhone design and ecosystem upgrades. That single-stock strength added meaningful market cap to the indices and buoyed peers in semis and platforms. (AP News)

Earnings week set-up: The market is looking ahead to reports from Coca-Cola, Tesla, and Procter & Gamble, among others. Expectations are that megacaps will reinforce AI and device-cycle narratives while consumer bellwethers color the demand picture. (AP News)

Macro data vacuum & the Fed: With some government economic reports delayed by the shutdown backdrop, traders are leaning on corporate guidance and Fed speak to triangulate the path of inflation and growth. For now, rates drifted slightly lower, and that was enough to re-ignite the growth trade. (AP News)

4) Rates, Yields, and the Dollar

The 10-year Treasury yield hovered around the ~4.0% mark intraday, briefly dipping below that psychological level before settling near ~3.98%–4.01% depending on the print you caught. Lower yields supported duration-sensitive tech and high-multiple stories. (MarketWatch)

5) Sector Snapshot

• Technology: Clear leader, juiced by Apple and AI infrastructure sympathy moves. (AP News)
• Financials: Stabilized as investors reassessed last week’s regional-bank jitters; selective rebounds in regionals like Zions helped sentiment. (AP News)
• Consumer Staples/Discretionary: Mixed to positive, with eyes on this week’s staples earnings for pricing-power read-throughs. (AP News)
• Energy: Lagged as crude slid to five-month lows on oversupply fears and a contangoing curve—a headwind for near-term cash flows. (Reuters)

6) Notable Stock Stories

• Apple (AAPL): +~3.9%, setting a personal record high and providing index-level ballast. (AP News)
• Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF): Popped ~21.5% after the CEO flagged a potential deal with a global steel producer and rare earths discovery headlines—the latter resonated as China’s export curbs keep critical-materials supply in focus. Volatile, but emblematic of a market chasing catalysts. (AP News)
• Amazon (AMZN): Up about 1.6% despite reports of a cloud service outage—investors appear to be looking through one-offs into secular growth. (AP News)
• Regional banks: A modest bounce—Zions Bancorp reclaimed some ground after last week’s hit—helped by calmer rate action and hope that issues flagged last week aren’t systemic. (AP News)

7) Commodities Check — Oil Slumps

Crude remained under pressure. Brent settled near ~$61 and WTI near ~$57.5, both at five-month lows. The narrative: OPEC+ output resilience, non-OPEC supply staying firm, and shoulder-season demand softness pushing the market deeper into contango—where near-dated contracts trade below longer-dated ones. That incentivizes storage and signals oversupply fears. For equities, that’s a drag on energy but a modest input cost relief for transports and parts of consumer discretionary. (Reuters)

8) Crypto Corner

After a weekend bounce, Bitcoin hovered around ~$111K during U.S. hours, with enthusiasm tempered as majors chopped sideways. Some alt strength cropped up in XRP, LINK, and privacy names like Zcash. Strategists framed the rebound as a “structural reset” rather than a dead-cat bounce, but momentum cooled as equities took center stage. (CoinDesk)

9) Global Markets

Asia kicked off the risk-on tone—Japan’s Nikkei led with a sharp rally, aided by local political developments—while China printed a ~4.8% annual growth pace that was “good enough” for a market eager for stabilization signs. Risk appetite spilled into the U.S. open and never really faded. (AP News)

10) What’s Next — The Week Ahead

• Earnings: Eyes on Coca-Cola, Tesla, Procter & Gamble, Intel, and Netflix for reads on consumer health, AI capex, device cycles, and streaming profitability. The key is whether guidance can shoulder a market priced near records. (AP News)
• Rates & Fed: Sub-4% on the 10-year has been a green light for high-multiple tech. Any hawkish surprise, tariff chatter, or curve repricing could quickly challenge that. (MarketWatch)
• Commodities: Watch crude’s curve—persistent contango plus rising inventories can keep energy equities on the back foot, even as broader markets cheer lower input costs. (Reuters)
• Crypto: If Bitcoin can hold the six-figure handle with calmer macro, risk proxies may keep acting as a barometer for liquidity appetite. (CoinDesk)

11) The PyUncut Take

1. Breadth vs. Big Tech: Today’s rally leaned heavily on Apple and the megacaps. That’s fine for index levels, but for a durable up-leg you want to see small and mid caps participate more meaningfully—particularly financials and industrials—so keep an eye on equal-weight indices this week. (AP News)
2. Rates are still the fulcrum: The line between 3.9% and 4.2% on the 10-year remains the equity market’s mood ring. Sub-4% has historically been rocket fuel for duration trades; a quick backup in yields could flip the script fast. (MarketWatch)
3. Oil’s message: A contangoing curve and five-month price lows hint at softer near-term demand or too much supply—or both. That helps margins for shippers and select consumer names but is a warning for energy earnings revisions if it persists. (Reuters)
4. Earnings as data substitute: With some official releases delayed, guidance and margins from staples, autos/EV, and AI infrastructure will carry extra weight in shaping the macro narrative. The bar is higher with the S&P within a rounding error of record territory. (AP News)

12) Quick “Mic-Ready” Outro Script (30 seconds)

“Markets kicked off the week on a high note—S&P 500 up just over 1% and within 0.3% of record highs, the Dow +515, Nasdaq +1.4%, all powered by Apple at fresh records and a friendly drift lower in Treasury yields. Oil slipped to five-month lows as contango deepened, taking a bite out of energy but easing input costs elsewhere. Bitcoin held near $111K as weekend momentum cooled. The focus now turns to earnings—Coca-Cola, Tesla, P&G and more—where guidance could make or break this late-year rally. That’s it for today’s PyUncut—see you tomorrow.”

• Date-stamp it up front: “Monday, October 20, 2025.”
• Mention Apple’s record, S&P within 0.3% of ATH, 10-year near 4%, oil at five-month lows, and earnings lineup—these are your headline beats. (AP News)