“Wait! That was real?”

You know that one Office episode where Oscar dares Andy to drunk-dial Angela and ask why she won’t sleep with “The Nard Dog”? Then the next day Oscar’s like, “Andy, you actually did that,” and Andy goes, “Wait… that was real? I thought it was a bad dream.” Yeah, that’s exactly what the stock market did this morning.

On Friday, Jerome “Two-Step” Powell tap-danced onto the Jackson Hole stage, whispered sweet nothings about rate cuts, and traders blacked out in euphoria… sending the Dow to a record high. But today? After a long weekend, they woke up, rubbed their eyes, and went, “Oh sh*t, did we actually buy all that?” By the closing bell, the S&P slipped 0.1%, the Dow also dipped 0.1% (after its monster 1.8% Friday rally), and the Nasdaq barely eked out a 0.2% gain thanks to Nvidia, who once again played market babysitter. 

And speaking of Jensen’s chip empire… all eyes are on Nvidia’s earnings Wednesday. Analysts are looking for $46B in revenue and $1.01 EPS. The stock’s already up 32% this year and doubled since April, so the bar isn’t just high… it’s orbiting with Elon’s Starlink satellites. Dell and Marvell report Thursday, which could decide whether AI stocks keep moonwalking (hee-hee) or whether Sam Altman’s prediction of an AI bubble starts to become true.

Meanwhile, Intel got hit with a huge cup of cold water. After spiking Friday on news Uncle Sam bought up a 10% stake, the stock lost momentum today, down about 1%. Trump couldn’t care less… he went full late-night infomercial on CNBC, yelling that deals like this will happen “all day long.” Word on the street is the next target might be GrabaGun (and no, don’t worry about the fact Don Jr. is conveniently on the board… nothing to see here, folks). Calm down, I’m joking (I think).

In other news, Warren Buffett sat down with CSX’s CEO in Omaha and basically said, “Look kid, I’m not f**ing buying another railroad.”* That one sentence sent the stock off the rails… CSX dumped 6% on the day. Imagine losing billions because Grandpa Buffett decided he’s done playing with toy trains and told you to kick rocks.

Crypto wasn’t safe either. Bitcoin slid 1.5% to $112K, and Ethereum puked 4% after spiking on Powell’s dovish vibes Friday. Turns out, you can’t ride Fed hopium forever… not even in crypto land (sorry, laser-eye bros).

With all that said, the Fed’s pretty much waving a giant sign that reads: “Rate Cuts Coming.” UBS is calling for four by early 2026, and history shows stocks don’t exactly tank when Jerome fires up the printer. Sure, risks exist… but when money gets cheaper, do stocks usually go down? I’ll let you answer that question. But if you’re waiting for a better entry, you might be waiting until we’re all bald and yelling at clouds.

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 this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Dell and Intel as mentioned in the article.