US stocks opened higher on Monday, October 26, 2026, rebounding after a rough end to last week, as investors welcomed Anthropic's public IPO filing and looked ahead to a packed week of big technology earnings and the Federal Reserve's next interest-rate decision.
At the open, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 105.30 points, or 0.20%, to 52,320.45. The S&P 500 advanced 16 points, or 0.21%, to 7,639.70, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 71.50 points, or 0.28%, to 26,026.87, according to figures reported by Reuters. Intraday reports later put the Nasdaq up more than 1% and the S&P 500 up around 0.7%, with the Dow up roughly 0.4% to 0.5%.
The bounce followed Friday's sell-off, when the Dow fell 1.2%, or 652.82 points, to close at 52,215.16, the S&P 500 shed 0.5% to 7,623.68, and the Nasdaq slipped 0.2% to 25,955.34. Rising oil prices and worries about artificial intelligence spending had weighed on sentiment then. On Monday, easing oil prices — with Brent crude dipping below $110 a barrel — offered some relief.
What drove the rally
The biggest talking point was Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, which publicly filed its IPO prospectus with US regulators on Monday. Reports said the filing showed revenue of $16.29 billion for the six months to June 2026, up sharply from $1.16 billion a year earlier, and that the company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT. Chipmakers including Nvidia, Micron, Broadcom and AMD gained as investors read the filing as a fresh vote of confidence in AI demand, after two straight weekly losses for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq.
At the same time, traders are bracing for earnings from Alphabet and Microsoft on Wednesday, with Amazon also in focus this week. More than a third of S&P 500 companies are due to report, and strategists have warned sentiment is cautious, so results could move the market sharply in either direction.
What to watch this week
The Federal Reserve's policy meeting is the other key event, with most investors expecting rates to be held steady, in a range of 3.75% to 4%. Central banks in Europe, Canada and Japan also meet this week. The September PCE inflation report is also due, giving the Fed fresh data on price pressures.
Not every corner of the AI trade joined the rally. So-called neocloud companies, which have borrowed heavily to build AI infrastructure, faced renewed questions about debt and returns, and some investors remain sceptical about how much profit AI will deliver outside the technology sector itself.
This article is for information only and is not financial advice. Market figures quoted are opening and intraday levels reported during the session, not final closing prices.
Sources: Reuters, Sunday Guardian Live, Summa Money, Zacks, Morningstar / Dow Jones
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