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U.S. Stocks Slip on Inflation Fears as Oil and Bond Yields Climb; Meta and Apple AI Moves Draw Focus

U.S. stocks ended last week lower as oil prices and Treasury yields rose on inflation worries, lifting odds of a September Fed rate hike. Meta and Apple drew attention with AI and product announcements.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-13 00:22

Escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran sent West Texas Intermediate above $100 a barrel on Thursday for the first time in nearly four months. Even after Friday's decline, WTI rose more than 9% last week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury topped 4.95% on Thursday, its highest since October 2023, before easing Friday. Bond yields have moved with rising crude prices on worries that higher energy costs could keep inflation elevated and necessitate a rate hike.

Inflation data last week did little to ease concerns. Thursday's producer price index rose 0.4% for the month, in line with expectations. Friday's consumer price index showed headline inflation rose 0.4% month over month and 3.4% from a year earlier. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.3% on the month, slightly more than expected. These were the final major inflation indicators before the Fed's Sept. 15-16 gathering.

Market odds of a September Fed rate hike rose to 87% from 58% a week earlier, according to the CME FedWatch tool. A second rate increase before the end of the year is also starting to come into the frame, CNBC reported.

Meta Platforms and Apple gave some reasons for optimism. Meta's Muse Spark 1.3 model, released Sept. 2, quickly emerged as a credible competitor to frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta followed with the launch of its Muse personal AI agent, which integrates with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, leveraging their 3.6 billion daily active users. The releases strengthen the case that Meta's large AI investments are creating valuable assets, CNBC reported.

Meta trades at roughly 19 times 2027 earnings estimates despite expected revenue growth of 20% in its core Family of Apps business. Its vast computing infrastructure adds another layer of optionality, whether Meta uses that capacity internally or eventually sells excess compute through a public cloud, which Jim Cramer favors. CNBC said Meta is Jim Cramer's favorite 'Magnificent Seven' name and carries a buy-equivalent 1 rating. Meta shares gained 5% last week.

Apple's foldable iPhone launch last Wednesday had what Jim Cramer called a real 'wow factor.' The iPhone Duo, starting at $1,999, gives Apple a new form factor rather than another incremental upgrade to its flagship device. The new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max received expected hardware improvements along with $100 price increases, which should help offset higher memory costs without significantly damaging demand, according to CNBC. Apple shares gained nearly 4% on the week.

The bigger long-term development may be AI. New Apple CEO John Ternus positioned the iPhone as an 'intelligent personal hub,' with an AI-upgraded Siri able to tap into more than 300,000 apps. That puts Apple into the emerging battle for personal AI agents alongside Meta's Muse and SpaceX's Grok Bot. CNBC said it does not view that market as winner-take-all, and consumers could ultimately use several agents for different tasks. Apple's advantage is its ability to deeply integrate AI into a device already embedded in hundreds of millions of users' daily lives.