August 11th Market Overview

Happy Tuesday

Stocks slipped, and oil did most of the pushing. Talks with Iran unfortunately stalled over money, Brent touched $90 early this AM, and Treasury yields followed it up.

I think tomorrow's inflation number decides how the rest of this week trades.

Let’s dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. Oil back near $90

Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until Washington pays what Tehran says it is owed. Trump said no, and that he would rather wait for the pressure on Iran's economy to do the work. Nothing moved today, so Brent touched $90 this morning before easing back near $88. Expensive oil means expensive gas and shipping, and that walks straight into tomorrow's inflation report.

2. Someone else is paying for AI now

Nvidia $NVDA got six investment firms, Blackstone and KKR among them, to line up more than $500 billion for data centers. Here is why that matters. Nvidia had been helping fund the customers who buy its chips, which made demand look stronger than it really was, and now outside investors carry that weight instead. Intel $INTC sold $20 billion of stock this week to fund its own buildout. The chips still sell. The new question is who writes the check.

3. Housing split in two

Existing home sales fell for a second straight month to an annual pace of 4.06 million, while the median price hit $434,100, near a record. Mortgage rates keep creeping higher, and that always hits the bottom of the market first. Ivy Zelman of Zelman & Associates says homes above $1 million are still moving while first time buyers sit it out. The one soft spot for buyers is new construction, where builders are handing out real incentives to clear inventory.

Market Overview

Index Performance

Stock spotlight

On Holding $ONON ( ▼ 21.57% )  
cut its outlook for the year after wholesale revenue came in light. Co-CEO David Allemann said they will hold full price in a promotional market, with entry level shoes near $160.

Rocket Lab $RKLB ( ▲ 0.84% )  
said its Neutron rocket may not fly this year. CEO Peter Beck said the window is narrowing and the team is trading launch timing for a cleaner scale-up.

Trump Media $DJT ( ▼ 4.74% )  
reported a tenfold increase in second quarter losses on writedowns of its digital assets. More than ten customers, mostly high frequency trading firms, pay $60,000 to $100,000 a month for a real time feed of top Truth Social accounts.

Big name updates

Alphabet $GOOGL ( ▼ 3.47% )  
headed for its fourth losing session in five. The slide started when the company said it was reshuffling its AI teams last week.

Boeing $BA ( ▲ 0.38% )  
was upgraded to buy at Argus with a $265 target, on clearance for higher monthly production, two new flight certifications, and positive cash flow for the first time since 2023.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise $HPE ( ▼ 0.55% )  
is Morgan Stanley's way to play rising memory prices. Erik Woodring says companies are buying servers and storage early to lock in prices before they climb again.

Best Buy $BBY ( ▲ 1.59% )  
was upgraded to buy at Truist on replacement demand and small product cycles like AI wearables.

Restaurant Brands $QSR ( ▲ 0.76% )  
said the reworked Whopper brought Burger King sales back. The next lever is remodeling tired looking stores.

Other notable company news

Jabil $JBL ( ▲ 5.23% )  
was upgraded to buy at UBS on AI spending from Amazon, Meta and Google.

Riot Platforms $RIOT ( ▲ 1.91% )  
reported revenue of $174.2 million against the $154.3 million analysts expected, and mined 1,587 bitcoin last quarter.

Airbnb $ABNB ( ▲ 0.7% )  
was downgraded at PhillipCapital, which still raised its target to $158 after the earnings beat.

Smithfield Foods $SFD ( ▼ 2.13% )  
cut its annual sales forecast as shoppers skip pork, though restaurant orders for fresh pork rose.

Plug Power $PLUG ( ▲ 5.92% )  
reported a narrower loss and better revenue, with more non-dilutive financing planned.

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Sector Watch

Bond market

Yields climbed early as oil moved toward $90, with the 10-year near 4.73 and the 30-year around 5.27. Both sit close to their highs for the year, and both eased once crude came off.

Two things worth knowing from the New York Fed's quarterly debt report:

• Household debt balances fell by $13 billion last quarter and delinquency rates held steady.

• The worst-since-2008 credit card headline is partly a measurement quirk. Charged-off debts now stay on credit reports far longer than they did a decade ago.

Treasury sells 10-year notes tomorrow and 30-year bonds Thursday.

Policy watch

Fed

More traders now expect a rate hike in September than a cut. Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack said Monday that one increase may not be enough to bring inflation down. Dennis Follmer at Montis Financial reads it the other way and expects a hold. His argument is that the sticky part is services, and services barely respond to rates.

The labor picture is better than the headlines suggest:

• A monthly survey of small business owners hit its best reading since August 2025, with hiring plans the strongest since late 2022.

• Bank of America pushed back on the AI job apocalypse idea. Its economists expect displacement first, then new roles.

• The exception is young workers. Unemployment among 22 to 27 year olds keeps rising.

What to Watch

The AI company quietly automating every Walmart distribution center. 
23 billion in orders on the book.

It's just one of seven names in this free MarketBeat report.

July inflation report Wednesday

Consumer prices land before the open. Watch services, the part that has stayed stubborn, and remember oil is higher now than it was a month ago.

Two AI earnings reports tonight

Super Micro Computer $SMCI and CoreWeave $CRWV both report after the close. Supermicro already told investors margins would come in around double its earlier guidance, with more than $60 billion in new fourth quarter orders. Cleanest read yet on whether AI hardware demand is still building.

Thanks for reading - you are now the more informed 🙂

- John

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