---
title: "The Fed hiked and signaled more; the 10-year yield still fell to 4.94%"
url: "https://etf.net/news/the-fed-hiked-and-signaled-more-the-10-year-yield-still-fell-to-4-94-2026-09-17"
published_at: "2026-09-17T21:03:17.154Z"
updated_at: "2026-09-17T21:03:17.154Z"
byline: "ETF.net Research"
---

# The Fed hiked and signaled more; the 10-year yield still fell to 4.94%

The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.94% on Thursday, September 17, 2026, and the S&P 500 gained 1.1% as semiconductors led, a day after the Federal Reserve’s first hike since 2023.

By ETF.net Research. Published Sep 17, 2026.

The Federal Open Market Committee voted 12-0 on Wednesday to raise the federal-funds target range by a quarter point to 3.75% to 4%, its first increase since 2023, and lifted its median year-end projection to **4.1%** in both 2026 and 2027, from June medians of 3.8% and 3.6%. Thursday’s long-term Treasury ETF TLT rose **1.1%** anyway, and the 10-year yield fell to **4.94%**. The S&P 500 closed at 7,637.05, up 85 points, or 1.1%, taking back [Wednesday’s post-hike decline](https://etf.net/news/fed-signals-another-hike-after-raising-rates-25-basis-points-dow-falls-1-2-2026-09-16).

Chart: **Duration** and the S&P 500 both bid Thursday

## Bonds rally; the dots do not

The rest of the curve followed. The intermediate Treasury ETF IEF gained **0.6%**, and the 1-3 year Treasury ETF SHY added 0.1%. Investment-grade credit LQD rose 0.7%; high-yield HYG rose 0.4%. The Treasury par curve dated Thursday put the 2-year yield at **4.67%**, the 10-year at 4.94%, and the 30-year at **5.29%**. The 2-year/10-year spread was 0.27 percentage points.

The 2026 median still implies another increase this year. Fed-funds futures tracked by CME FedWatch put the odds of a quarter-point rise at the October 28 meeting at **55.1%** on Thursday, a slight favorite rather than a lock. Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz’s chief economist, said Thursday he preferred the Fed had not hiked.

The Bank of England [held Bank Rate at 3.75% and pulled long-dated gilts out of quantitative tightening](https://etf.net/news/boe-holds-at-3-75-and-pulls-long-dated-gilts-out-of-quantitative-tightening-2026-09-17).

A Labor Department report at 8:30 a.m. ET fit the Fed’s description of a labor market that can bear higher rates: initial jobless claims fell 10,000 to **196,000** in the week ended September 12, and the four-week average dropped to 203,250.

West Texas Intermediate was at **$101.27** a barrel at 4:31 p.m. ET, down 1.1%. Brent was at $104.21, down 1.5%. Additional Saudi cargoes moving through Oman, and US comments that last week’s East-West pipeline outage would be brief, took some of the urgency out of a supply scare that had [pushed crude near $106 earlier in the week](https://etf.net/news/saudi-pipeline-shutdown-crude-near-106-and-10-year-yield-at-5-04-before-fed-2026-09-15). The energy sector ETF XLE still rose **0.7%**.

## Semiconductors carry the indexes

The same session that lifted long Treasurys also lifted chip stocks. The S&P 500 ETF SPY rose **1.1%**. The Nasdaq-100 ETF QQQ rose **1.7%**. The equal-weight S&P 500 ETF RSP and the Russell 2000 ETF IWM each gained **0.5%**: cap-weighted indexes outran equal-weight and small-cap funds. Across US-listed ETFs, 4,531 of 5,461 priced funds closed higher. The Dow industrials recovered only about half of Wednesday’s 1.2% drop and still finished below Tuesday’s close. The Cboe Volatility Index fell 12.8% to 15.44, reversing Wednesday’s rise.

The technology sector ETF XLK gained **2.2%**, the best of the 11 SPDR sector funds on Thursday, and the semiconductor ETF SMH rose **2.8%**.

Chart: **Technology** led every SPDR sector fund

Nvidia, at an 8.0% weight in SPY, contributed **0.20** percentage points with a 2.5% gain. Micron added 0.09 points on a 5.5% rise; Apple and Microsoft added 0.10 and 0.09 points. Those four names accounted for 0.48 percentage points of the S&P 500 fund’s 1.1% move.

In QQQ, the mix was more purely chips. Micron, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia and Intel contributed **0.88** percentage points of the fund’s 1.7% gain. Intel rose **7.7%**. Reports during the session put SK hynix in early talks to produce memory at Intel’s Ohio complex. AMD rose 6.4%, Arm Holdings 8.6%, Marvell 4.8%, and Super Micro Computer 9.5%. They arrived as a group, which is usually how a factor trade looks.

T-Mobile fell **5.6%** to $166.45, a print next to its 52-week low of $165.66, and the communications ETF XLC fell **0.6%**, its third consecutive decline through Thursday, September 17. The financials ETF XLF slipped **0.1%**, a fourth straight down session, and did not join a day when long-term yields were falling. Berkshire Hathaway Class B dropped 2.0% and was the largest single drag on SPY.

## Generac’s Amazon backup-power contract

Generac Holdings disclosed in a Wednesday 8-K a long-term agreement to supply backup generators for Amazon data centers: **$2.4 billion** of initial deliveries expected in 2027 and 2028, with purchases that could reach **$8 billion**, plus a warrant on up to 1.69 million Generac shares. Thursday was the first regular session after the filing, and the shares rose **18.3%**. Amazon gained 2.1%. The contract puts a dollar figure on data-center power demand, the part of the AI build that does not show up in a semiconductor fund.

Friday’s test is the 10-year yield. Hold near 4.94% and Thursday’s bond bid still stands against the 4.1% median. A reversal higher would leave Wednesday’s dots unchallenged.

Source: etf.net, https://etf.net/news/the-fed-hiked-and-signaled-more-the-10-year-yield-still-fell-to-4-94-2026-09-17. Please cite the page URL.