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Nasdaq Jumps 2.74%, VIX Drops to 19.92: Closing Notes for Monday

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Closing Notes card, Nov 9, 2026: Broad rally, VIX sinks. Tiles: Nasdaq up 2.74% at the 25,253.14 close, S&P 500 up 2.35% at the 7,549.94 close, VIX 19.92, down 5.72 points.

Monday, November 9, 2026: stocks opened the week with a broad rally. All four major indexes gained more than 2%, the Dow added more than 1,100 points, and small caps led. Sliding oil prices and a return of buyers to chip and AI stocks drove the move, even as Nvidia itself fell. The VIX dropped below 20.

How the session closed

  • Indexes. The S&P 500 rose 173.08 points, or 2.35%, to 7,549.94. The Nasdaq Composite gained 673.71 points, or 2.74%, to 25,253.14. The Dow rose 1,104.02 points, or 2.15%, to 52,389.75. The Russell 2000 added 86.71 points, or 3.15%, to 2,840.81 (Yahoo Finance). The Nasdaq-100 rose 3.40% (TheStreet).
  • Breadth. Advancers beat decliners by about three to one: 4,221 stocks rose, or 75.3%, against 1,240 that fell (TheStreet, 4:13 p.m. ET wrap).
  • Why. Lower oil prices and a renewed bid for AI and semiconductor stocks after last week’s volatile post-election shake-up carried the rally (Yahoo Finance, TheStreet). Industrials helped lead the rebound, and nearly every S&P 500 sector rose (Yahoo Finance, TheStreet).
  • Chips and Nvidia. AMD rallied after an upgrade to Outperform at Oppenheimer, and Broadcom also gained strongly (StockTitan). Nvidia went the other way, closing at $178.67, down $7.97 or 4.27%, after its board opened an independent investigation involving CEO Jensen Huang (Yahoo Finance).
  • Other movers. Coherent jumped on strong earnings, and Flex and Ferguson rallied after beating estimates and raising guidance (TheStreet). Greenfire Resources surged on a buyout offer from Strathcona (StockTitan). On the downside, Ionis fell sharply after cutting its 2026 sales forecast for Tryngolza to about $50 million from $100 million to $110 million (StockTitan).
  • VIX. 19.92, down 5.72 points or 22.31% (Yahoo Finance).
  • Yields. The 10-year Treasury yield ended at 4.864%, up 0.005 (Yahoo Finance).
  • Oil. Crude fell for the session, and Yahoo Finance noted oil is now down about 20% from its April high.

After hours

  • Nvidia traded at $179.33 in extended trading, up $0.66 or 0.37% from the close, at 4:55 p.m. ET (Yahoo Finance).
  • Earnings. Hims & Hers and Rocket Lab were scheduled to report after the bell (Yahoo Finance).

What it means for options traders

Realized beat implied, to the upside. Friday’s 25.64 VIX worked out to about 1.6% a day on the divide-by-16 shortcut. The S&P 500 moved 2.35%. Large moves are usually associated with selling, but a sharp rally can outrun implied volatility just as easily. Short-premium positions that were wide enough for an average day were tested on the call side today.

A big up day, a big vol drop. The VIX fell 22% while the index rose more than 2%. That is the usual inverse relationship between stock prices and index implied volatility, in a strong form. Put skew tends to flatten and call prices tend to cheapen in volatility terms on days like this, even when calls rise in dollars. Traders who were long volatility through puts lost on both direction and vol; those who were long calls gained on direction but gave some back to the vol drop.

CPI is next. October CPI is due Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, with expectations for a 0.3% monthly gain in the headline index and 0.2% in core (StockTitan, Yahoo Finance). Even after today’s drop, a known release still holds up the implied volatility of the expiration that contains it. Once the number is out, that premium usually comes out of the front of the curve, which is what drives the pricing of calendar spreads that straddle the release.

Sources

Related reading

This post is for education only. It is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security or option. Options involve risk and are not suitable for all investors. Figures are from the sources listed and may be revised; check primary sources before relying on any number.

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