The house is on fire, but the lawn looks great.

Well, my friends… even though today was a limp bizkit day, Wall Street still managed to rack its fourth winning month in a row. Resilience, they’ll call it. Addiction is probably closer. 

(Source: Imgflip) 

The S&P 500 drifted -0.64% lower to 6,460.26, the Nasdaq coughed up -115% to 21,455.55, and the Dow shaved off 92 points to 45,544.88. And yet, underneath the surface, the rot was familiar. Core PCE (a.k.a. Jerome’s poison of choice), ticked to 2.9% in July, the hottest since February. It wasn’t a shock, but it was enough to remind everyone that the fire isn’t out, it’s just smoldering. Which is why Morgan Stanley’s Ellen Zentner summed it up best: it’s all about jobs data now.

Meanwhile, the market’s golden calf got taken behind the barn today. Nvidia slid -3.3%, extending a two-day beatdown despite posting 56% revenue growth earlier in the week. Blame the Wall Street Journal report that Alibaba (+12.99%) is building chips to blunt U.S. export bans…and once again solidifying the fact that when you're the mascot of the entire trade (See: Nvidia), you get guillotined first when the crowd turns. The selloff though bled into semis across the board: Marvell cratered -18% after a weak outlook, AMD, Lam Research, and Applied Materials each lost 3–4%, and the SOX index sank more than -3%.

(Source: Giphy) 

Additionally, the tariff drumbeat didn’t help either. Caterpillar warned tariffs could shave $1.5–1.8B off earnings, sending the stock down -3.6%, while Gap (+1.52%) admitted its margins are getting shredded. Both updates reminded investors that Trump’s trade hammer still swings hard… with an extra zesty side of bipolar disorder. 

Elsewhere, Kraft Heinz climbed +2.6% after news it might finally split apart. A decade of Buffett and 3G’s grand experiment reduced to a yard sale. As for Petco, shares ripped +23% on raised guidance, NeoGenomics jumped 21% on a favorable ruling, and Privia Health rallied +5% after hiking its EBITDA forecast. Oh, and Affirm added +10%, because according to the CEO, “buy now, cry later” is still the hottest trend with American consumers. 

(Source: Giphy) 

On the losers side though, Dell cratered -9%. To be fair, the company did just experience its best quarter in years, however… it wasn’t enough to outweigh the dog ugly profit outlook. Adding to the pain, Big Tech was basically red across the board. Tesla, and Broadcom both plunged -3%. Amazon and Meta slipped -1%, while Microsoft and Apple bled quietly. Only Alphabet (+0.6%) eked out a gain, because silence is bullish when everyone else is confessing sins.

So yeah, that was the grand finale ending. Sure, the S&P finished the week lower. But it also locked another green month in the midst of inflation, trade war shrapnel, and AI volatility. With that said though, let’s all just pray the jobs report doesn’t kneecap us next week. Until next time, friends… 

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Dell, Amazon, Meta, Tesla, Microsoft, Apple, and Alphabet as mentioned in the article.