Market Review: August 21, 2026

Closing Recap

Friday, August 21, 2026

U.S. stocks pushed higher this morning with the S&P 500 (SPX) rising to around 7,700 but failed to pick up steam, as stocks slipped and pared gains closing out a quiet summer Friday. While stocks closed higher today (breadth positive with 9 sectors rising to 2 falling), Wall Street still ended the week lower (first weekly loss since the end of July) as a combination of higher Treasury yields, rising oil and inflation concerns remain in the forefront of Wall Street investors. Bond yields are holding near their highest levels in years despite the efforts of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to contain borrowing costs. Bessent said Thursday a U.S. Treasury buyback could increase even further, the day after he announced plans to double them, raising the cap from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation in an effort to tame spiking yields. The change, which will apply to the 10-year to 20-year sector and the 20-year to 30-year sector, will be effective Sept. 9 through Nov. 4. While stocks didn’t do much today, precious metals (gold/silver) and Bitcoin saw sizeable gains the last few days post the Treasury comments. Bitcoin briefly neared $80,000 early this morning before paring gains but rose over 20% this week. Coming up, the Fed’s Jackson Hole Symposium (Aug 27-29) and Nvidia’s (NVDA) second quarter earnings are next week along with other key tech names Salesforce (CRM) and CrowdStrike (CRWD) in software, and Marvell (MRVL) in semis, the biggest highlights for Wall Street. The QQQ snapped its 5-day losing streak on Friday but for the week, the S&P 500 fell 1.43%, the Nasdaq declined -2.05%, and the Dow fell -0.85%.

• UK Composite PMI Flash actual 52.5 (Forecast 51.6, Previous 52.2); UK Services PMI Flash Actual 52.8 (Forecast 51.8, Previous 52.1); UK Manufacturing PMI Flash Actual 51.5 (Forecast 51.5, Previous 51.9).
• Germany’s private-sector activity remained in expansion in August, with the flash Composite PMI easing to 51.0 from 51.3 in July, a two-month low. The slowdown was driven by services, with the Services PMI falling to 48.5 from 49.8, a three-month low and back in contraction territory

• U.S. WTI crude oil futures settle at $87.06/bbl, up $0.23, or 0.26% while Brent Crude futures settle at $94.39/bbl, up 61 cents, or 0.65%, both rising on the week. WTI crude gained $5.59 per barrel, or 6.86% to $87.06 this week its largest one week net and percentage gain since the week ending July 24, 2026 (now up 11.36% the last 2 weeks) and up five of the past seven weeks as Iran situation remains. WTI crude also closed higher for a sixth consecutive session, longest win streak since March 9, 2026, when the market rose for seven straight sessions (also remains up 11 of the past 12 sessions).

• Off Price Retailers: ROST the latest this week to report earnings in the space, as shares rallied behind its strong Q2 results, driven by 10% comps and better gross margins, along with improving monthly momentum and a strong August; updated second-half outlook came in ahead of consensus forecasts on the top and bottom lines.
• Food Sector: for names like TSN, President Trump said this morning on a Truth Social post that he concluded a deal to substantially lower price of ground beef. Trump on tariffs: for next 90 days, United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to be imported with no out of quota tariff. Have a commitment that this beef will be sold at 25% below current market prices. LMB was downgraded to Underweight from Neutral at JP Morgan, concerned by the Q2 earnings report, saying the 22% revenue growth was almost entirely acquisition-led, while gross margin compressed. FLO shares slipped after Q2 top/bottom line miss and cuts FY EPS and revenue outlooks; cuts FY26 adjusted EPS view to $0.75-$0.86 from prior $0.80-$0.90 (est. $0.83) and revs to $5.07B-$5.142B from $5.163B-$5.267B.

• Utility sector: the Utility sector (XLU) was down over 2% in the S&P 500, the lone standout to the downside in the index (DUK, AEP, SP, NEE) as the fact Treasury yields have failed to drop the last few days despite the US Treasury buyback news could be partially wearing on dividend paying sectors/at the same time more rotation into riskier assets like Bitcoin and havens Life Precious metals (and out of defensives).
• Paper & Packaging: OI shares rallied after Citigroup upgraded to Buy as expects estimates have bottomed after a series of negative revisions, and the low-end of ’26 EBITDA guidance looks derisked citing conservative assumptions for 2H vol recovery, stabilizing net price in Europe, and resolved headwinds.
• Transport sector: FDX, UPS and Polar Air Cargo Worldwide Inc. will provide delivery services for U.S. agencies under a deal negotiated by an interagency team of the Department of Defense and executive agency representatives. While FedEx and UPS will get $2.7B each, Polar Air’s award is a tenth of that— $272M, for agreements running from Oct. 1, 2026, to Sept. 30, 2030.

• Asset managers: Bloomberg reported IVZ is cutting management fees by 20% for investors in a $12.7 billion real estate fund, as the firm grapples with a backlog of redemption requests.

• GOSS announced up to $250M structured private placement, including $150M of committed capital, to fund seralutinib through potential FDA approval; proceeds expected to fund operations into 2028; $25M funded at initial closing, $125M upon FDA NDA Acceptance.
• MRNA shares fell more than 20% Thursday, following Wednesday’s extraordinary surge after the company and MRK announced that their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine had succeeded in a Phase 3 melanoma study – was likely in part because investors took their profits after the spike.
• Medical Equipment sector: ABT agreed to pay $670M to settle a high-profile lawsuit and claims made on behalf of thousands of others related to allegations that its formula for babies born prematurely causes a dangerous intestinal disease. The settlement comes after an appeals court upheld a $495M judgment against Abbott in the high-profile case earlier this year.
• Defense sector: OSIS shares fell as Q4 revs $484.1Mm misses est. $529.7Mm; operating Income $73.9Mm vs est $87.98Mm; FY revenue guidance $1.875B-$1.930B vs. est. $1.94B; FY adj. EPS guidance $11.13-$11.49 vs. est. $11.44

• Data Center sector: Goldman Sachs raised its U.S. data center construction spending outlook, now forecasting spending of $67bn in 2026 and $87bn in 2027, reflecting 35% and 30% growth, respectively. The updated view is driven by accelerating construction spending, record levels of project starts and announcements, rising hyperscaler capex forecasts, and growing evidence of returns on AI-related investment, all of which continue to support a multi-year runway for data center infrastructure spending.
• Social media sector: a New Jersey tee has withdrawn her test-case lawsuit alleging that META, GOOGL and SNAP deliberately designed social media platforms to foster addiction and contributed to her depression and self-harm.

• MU CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said on Thursday that AI has dramatically changed the memory business. “Today there is no AI without memory. AI systems need more memory. They need higher performance memory. They need lower power memory,” Mehrotra said on CNBC’s “Mad Money.”
• NVDA is reportedly in advanced talks to invest several hundred million dollars in data-center power developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure, the WSJ reported. Cloverleaf secures reliable electricity and powered land for major data-center projects, with over 10 gigawatts in its pipeline. The potential deal would expand Nvidia’s push into AI infrastructure, helping secure future data-center capacity for its chips.