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A mid-week AI selloff gave way to a Micron-driven rebound, banks opened the capital-return spigot after passing the Fed stress test, and a $135 biotech takeout rounded out the week. Leadership broadened beyond mega-cap software into memory, financials, and healthcare.
A sharp AI and chip selloff hit the market's most crowded trade, even as the Dow and the Russell 2000 closed at fresh all time highs. Money rotated into financials, energy, industrials, and materials on real, dated catalysts: bank stress test buybacks, defense contract wins, and a steel earnings inflection.
A $10 billion biotech buyout, a Pentagon laser contract, and a grocery merger hit the tape in a week when the market absorbed a collapsed Iran ceasefire, an oil spike, and a hawkish surprise from the new Fed chair's first meeting minutes, and still finished higher. Chips and AI hardware rebounded from the prior week's selloff, and specific, verifiable catalysts did the talking.
The AI trade wobbled as Taiwan Semiconductor fell despite record results, dragging technology to the bottom of the market while energy led on an oil spike from the Strait of Hormuz crisis. Cooler than expected inflation and low jobless claims kept the backdrop supportive, and a fresh earnings season sorted winners from losers, sometimes in the same sector on the same day.
Oil climbed back above $100 and the ten year Treasury yield reached its highest of 2026, pulling a nervous market lower before the Fed. Alphabet and Tesla fell on renewed AI spending fears, while the week's winners, from General Motors to a steelmaker, rose on their own dated results.
A nearly flat week hid two genuine shocks and one record. A hawkish Fed hold with three dissents favoring a hike, plus a collapsed Middle East ceasefire, drove the Dow to its worst day since April 2025 and the 30 year yield to a 2007 high. Then Microsoft added roughly $450 billion in market value in a single session, the largest one day gain on record, while Meta fell for an eleventh straight day on the same AI spending question.
Oil broke and the market set records. After the Treasury Secretary said on August 4 that a Strait of Hormuz deal could come within days, crude fell 6.6% for the week, volatility dropped to 15.15, and the S&P 500 and Dow both set record closes. But the equal weight S&P 500 rose only 1.5% against 3.7% for the headline index, so the average stock captured well under half the move. The week's largest winners were five companies that raised their own full year guidance, led by CACI at 31.7% and Zebra Technologies at 26.2%.
Nvidia turned AI compute into something you can borrow against, signing agreements with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to mobilize more than $500 billion of third party capital. Iran hardened its terms on the Strait of Hormuz and crude jumped, making Energy the best sector of the week on a supply threat rather than on demand. Cooler July inflation cut September rate hike odds to roughly one in three, and for the first week in a month the equal weight S&P 500 beat the headline index while the Dow finished lower.
The market stopped paying for good news. Walmart raised every line of its full year outlook on August 20 and fell 9.15 percent the same day, while Estee Lauder raised its fiscal 2027 guide on August 19 and rose 16.30 percent. Steel Dynamics fell 15.94 percent on a report that tariffs on Canadian steel could be halved. The only things that worked were oil, gold and the first Phase 3 success for an mRNA cancer vaccine.
The market started paying for good news again, in one aisle of the store. NVIDIA guided the current quarter to $108 billion and Okta, Salesforce and Veeva all reported after the close on August 26 and all raised full year guidance, one week after Walmart raised its outlook and fell 9 percent. Energy gave back the Hormuz premium as Iran and Oman discussed a shared shipping route, and the index rose while the average stock barely moved.
The United States struck Iran on September 1 and Brent settled 8.87 percent higher, but gold fell 5.04 percent and the volatility index ended the week lower than it started, so the market priced a supply problem rather than a crisis. Seven of eleven sectors fell and small caps lost 1.53 percent while the S&P 500 still rose, because an oil shock is a revenue line for a small slice of the index and a cost line for most of it. Underneath, Dell raised its full year revenue forecast by 25 billion dollars, GitLab and Best Buy raised their own numbers too, and all three got paid for it.
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