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FICO -29%, Long Bonds Break 78, Chips Bounce: Midday Read

Fair Isaac — sinks 29% as Washington opens mortgages to VantageScore; long-bond fund breaks 78

The housing regulator lets every Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lender use FICO's rival score: Fair Isaac drops 29%, TransUnion 6.4%, Equifax 4.6%. The long-bond fund TLT slips below 78 and the thirty-year yield touches 5.60%. Staples and health care fall more than 1%, while chips bounce: Arm up 5.1%, Oracle 4.8%. Carnival jumps 11.7% on its results.

In this edition

FICO TRU EFX TLT TLH IEF XLP XLV

The Midday 10 Tue, Sep 29, 2026 ~60 seconds 11:45 ET

A mixed, nervous midday. The S&P 500 is down 0.33% at 7,659, the Nasdaq 0.19% and the Dow 0.64%. The index hides a wide spread underneath: the biggest loser among large US stocks is a company that lost a monopoly overnight, while the chip stocks that sold off yesterday bounce.

The first story is Fair Isaac. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has made VantageScore 4.0 available to all of their approved lenders and is simplifying the mortgage pricing grid to take it in. The FICO score has been the only score that counted for most US mortgages. Fair Isaac is down 29.03%.

The second is the bond market, where this morning's break goes on. The long-bond fund TLT is at 77.93, below the 78 line named in today's Daily Pulse, and the thirty-year yield is at 5.60%. The stocks that behave most like bonds - consumer staples and health care - are down more than 1%. The third is a rebound in chips, cruise lines and fuel cells.

US intraday quotes at about 11:28 ET (15:28 UTC); moves are measured against Monday's closes. Intraday prints are not closes. Oil moves are the Brent and WTI funds (BNO, USO), not futures. Treasury yields are Yahoo's Cboe yield indices. The FHFA decision on VantageScore, the TransUnion pricing commitment, Carnival's results, the fuel-cell rebound and Iovance's outlook are from the day's wire and company reports.

  1. Fair Isaac $596.82 (-29.03%) after the housing regulator opens Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages to VantageScore 4.0
  2. The credit bureaus fall with it: TransUnion $61.94 (-6.42%), Equifax $139.04 (-4.62%)
  3. Long bonds break lower: TLT 77.93 (-0.88%), TLH 92.11 (-0.70%), IEF 89.22 (-0.35%); thirty-year yield 5.599% (Monday 5.561%), ten-year 5.268% (5.240%)
  4. The steady sectors are sold: consumer staples XLP $81.40 (-1.07%), health care XLV $169.52 (-1.02%), real estate XLRE $41.23 (-0.29%); the Dow -0.64%
  5. Chips bounce after Monday's drop: Arm $297.74 (+5.08%), Oracle $138.91 (+4.76%), Marvell $262.22 (+4.10%), ASML $1,818.93 (+2.68%), Broadcom $357.53 (+2.28%); chip fund SOXX +1.56%, Micron +1.03% a day before its results
  6. Carnival $24.74 (+11.72%) after third-quarter results above estimates and strong bookings for 2027; Royal Caribbean $256.37 (+5.68%)
  7. Bloom Energy $294.66 (+12.09%) as the fuel-cell stocks rebound from a sharp selloff; Iovance Biotherapeutics $14.09 (+28.19%) after raising its revenue outlook for 2026
  8. Large caps lag: Apple $331.69 (-1.98%), Alphabet $338.88 (-1.13%), Tesla $353.57 (-1.09%); Palo Alto Networks $382.41 (-2.47%), MongoDB $328.00 (-2.00%) after its 18% drop
  9. Gold fund GLD $380.54 (+0.70%) after Monday's 3.9% drop, miners GDX flat; Brent fund BNO $59.44 (-1.48%), WTI fund USO $147.33 (-1.79%); bitcoin $82,955 (-0.64%); dollar index 101.49 (+0.29%)
  10. Print Record: Costco $918.71 (-0.46%) and BlackBerry $8.55 (-2.90%), both scored at today's close

The ten lines

  1. 1

    DOWN Fair Isaac $596.82 (-29.03%) after the housing regulator opens Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages to VantageScore 4.0

    FICO

    FHFA director Bill Pulte says the mortgage pricing grid is being simplified and VantageScore is being built into it; VantageScore 4.0 is now available to every approved lender of the two agencies. Mortgage scores have been the biggest driver of Fair Isaac's revenue growth, because it could raise the price with no competitor. A second score in the grid takes away that pricing power, and the market is repricing the whole company around it.

  2. 2

    DOWN The credit bureaus fall with it: TransUnion $61.94 (-6.42%), Equifax $139.04 (-4.62%)

    TRUEFX

    The bureaus co-own VantageScore, so on paper they win. TransUnion even announced today that it will hold its price for VantageScore 4.0 on mortgages through December 2028. The market reads it the other way: a regulator that simplifies prices once can squeeze the bureaus' own mortgage fees next.

  3. Sector Engine Eleven sectors by four regions — the global rotation matrix Bloomberg keeps for institutions. Open the matrix →
  4. 3

    LEVEL Long bonds break lower: TLT 77.93 (-0.88%), TLH 92.11 (-0.70%), IEF 89.22 (-0.35%); thirty-year yield 5.599% (Monday 5.561%), ten-year 5.268% (5.240%)

    TLTTLHIEF^TYX^TNX

    TLT closed Monday 0.4% above its 52-week low; today it is below 78, the line named in this morning's Daily Pulse. The longer the maturity, the bigger the drop. The thirty-year at 5.60% is above Monday's close, which was already its highest since 2004.

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Today in line 11: what the end of the FICO monopoly says about businesses that live on pricing power, and why the bond break and the staples selling are the same story.

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Further reading on Closelooknet

Ten lines on the US midday tape, not advice — an investment diary. Published every trading day at 12:30 ET. See The Morning 10 and the Daily Pulse.