Ringside · Post-Bell · August 11
- Riot opened up 21% and closed up 4.33% at $20.24. Morning earnings rallies leaked all day.
- On Holding cut its full-year sales outlook and fell 20.29% to $30.91, a two-year low.
- Alphabet lost 3.84% to $343.80, a fourth down session in five. July inflation lands Wednesday, 8:30 ET.
Indexes
Buyers turned up for the morning's earnings news at 9:30 and were largely finished by lunch. Riot Platforms (RIOT) opened at $23.57 on its twenty-year data-center lease to an artificial-intelligence lab and closed at $20.24, keeping a 4.33% gain out of what had been a jump of more than a fifth at the bell. Plug Power (PLUG), still trading off last week's results, drew the same shape, opening at $2.48 and closing at $2.22. That pattern, repeated across the names carrying news, is most of what separated a quiet index reading from a strong one: the S&P 500 gave up 0.32% to 7,728.20 and the Nasdaq Composite 0.60% to 26,445.45, where Alphabet (GOOGL) accounted for a large share of the decline. Small caps went the other way, the Russell 2000 up 0.32% to 3,027.12, and that split is unusual enough on a down day to be worth noting on the eve of an inflation reading.
| Index | Close | % Chg | Range | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 | 7,728.20 | -0.32% | 7,717.25 - 7,767.51 | Closed near session low |
| Nasdaq Composite | 26,445.45 | -0.60% | 26,372.31 - 26,679.26 | Alphabet the biggest weight |
| Dow Jones | 53,791.85 | -0.34% | Off 184 points | |
| Russell 2000 | 3,027.12 | +0.32% | 3,023.47 - 3,036.09 | Only major index higher |
| VIX | 15.28 | -1.16% |
Sector Heat Map
Energy and utilities led a four-sector advance, and investors reach for both leaders when the appeal is income or a hard asset.
| Sector | % Chg | Sector | % Chg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy (XLE) | +1.25% | Financials (XLF) | -0.02% |
| Utilities (XLU) | +1.16% | Technology (XLK) | -0.12% |
| Industrials (XLI) | +0.60% | Health Care (XLV) | -0.26% |
| Materials (XLB) | +0.11% | Staples (XLP) | -0.31% |
| Consumer Disc. (XLY) | -0.36% | Communication Svcs (XLC) | -0.50% |
| Real Estate (XLRE) | -0.72% |
Energy tracked crude for a second straight session and utilities rose on a day when long yields fell, while real estate lagged everything despite the same yield move. Communication services sat near the bottom for a single-name reason, and Alphabet supplied it.
In the News
Rates, FX, Commodities
Auction day did what a good auction day does to the government bond market: yields fell right across the curve, helped along by a market content to wait for tomorrow's data before committing.
| Treasury | Yield | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2-Year | 4.224% | Down one and a half |
| 5-Year | 4.385% | Down two basis points |
| 10-Year | 4.684% | Down one and a half |
| 30-Year | 5.236% |
Crude added to Monday's 5% jump for a second day, and the fact that it keeps grinding higher instead of snapping back is the piece that matters for tomorrow's inflation arithmetic. A word on the figures below: Tuesday's exchange settlements had not published at the time of writing, so both crude benchmarks are quotes taken late in the session and may differ from the official settle. A dollar-index reading of 99.837 left the currency a shade above Monday.
| Commodity | Price | % Chg | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| WTI crude | $83.43 | +1.58% | September contract, late quote |
| Brent crude | $89.18 | +1.66% | October contract, late quote |
| Gold | $4,427.00 | +0.17% | December contract |
| Natural gas | $2.751 | -1.54% | Third day lower |
Technicals
At 7,728.20 the S&P 500 stays well clear of its moving averages, sitting 181.67 points above the twenty-day at 7,546.53 and 227.21 above the fifty-day at 7,500.99. Overhead is the August 7 finish of 7,757.64, now 29.44 points away and verified as the highest close in the index's history, ahead of Monday's 7,753.11. Its Nasdaq counterpart at 26,445.45 sits 2.39% below the twelve-month high of 27,093.90. Ten-year notes at 4.684% stayed inside the band that has contained them for three weeks, and Wednesday's release is the first scheduled event heavy enough to push them out. Sea Limited produced the session's largest gain, and its intraday chart traces a stock that began strong and kept adding through the afternoon.
Breakouts & Breakdowns
Breakouts
Cardinal Health (CAH) finished at $240.26, its highest in twelve months, on a quarter that beat and a raised full-year earnings forecast. The fifty-day average sits well below at $226.94.
Sea Limited (SE) ended at $131.51, more than 20% above its two-hundred-day average of $108.89. The twelve-month high at $196.50 remains far above.
Breakdowns
On Holding (ONON) settled at $30.91, its lowest finish in twelve months, with the two-hundred-day average now $9.51 overhead at $40.42.
Plug Power (PLUG) ended at $2.22 and, despite gaining on the day, sits under a fifty-day average of $2.54 and a two-hundred-day of $2.51. The twenty-day at $2.12 is the nearest support beneath.
Top Movers
Gainers
Sea Limited (SE), +14.56% to $131.51. The Singapore operator of Shopee and Garena more than doubled its early gain as the day went on, the opposite of what happened to most of the names reporting. Investors spent the day marking up a business whose second-quarter revenue arrived some $460 million above what analysts had modelled, and it finished within 43 cents of the session high.
Plug Power (PLUG), +5.21% to $2.22. The hydrogen company opened at $2.48 and spent the rest of the day going the other way, closing barely above the $2.16 session low.
Riot Platforms (RIOT), +4.33% to $20.24. The bitcoin miner's data-center lease to an artificial-intelligence lab was worth 21% at the open and 4.33% by the close, a fade of roughly three-quarters of the initial move. What the market appears to be weighing is how much credit to give a contract whose revenue arrives over two decades against a mining business that still lost money on an adjusted basis this quarter.
Losers
On Holding (ONON), -20.29% to $30.91. The Swiss running-shoe maker extended its early decline through the afternoon, closing 97 cents beneath the $31.88 twelve-month low it had been approaching at the open, a level set on March 30. The quarter beat on earnings and missed on revenue, and management then cut full-year constant-currency sales growth to the low-20% range from a prior floor of 23%. That guidance change, not the revenue miss, is what produced a decline of this size; the stock finished at a two-year low.
Alphabet (GOOGL), -3.84% to $343.80. The shares opened at $355.89 and never recovered, a fourth losing session in five since Google announced a reorganization of its artificial-intelligence teams on August 5; the French newspaper complaint landing the same morning did not help. Alphabet finished below both its twenty-day average of $348.23 and its fifty-day of $355.12, with the two-hundred-day still $13.69 lower at $330.11.
Key Macro Data Today
| Release | Actual | Consensus | Reaction |
|---|---|---|---|
| NFIB Small Business Optimism (Jul) | 99.8 | 97.5 | Eight of ten components improved |
| Existing Home Sales (Jul) | 4.06M | 4.05M | No visible reaction |
| 3-Year Note Auction | 4.291% | 4.296% | Yields eased after 1:00 ET |
Small-business owners delivered the stronger of the two readings, lifting the index 2.4 points to finish 1.8 above its 52-year average of 98.0, with hiring plans leading the improvement. That sits awkwardly beside the soft July payrolls figure released Friday, and both will be in the room when the Federal Reserve meets in September.
Notable Earnings This Session
Consumer and crypto names filled the morning slate; the evening belonged entirely to artificial-intelligence infrastructure.
Pre-Open
Sea Limited, On Holding, Riot Platforms and Cardinal Health all released results before the opening bell, and each is covered above.
Post-Close
Super Micro Computer (SMCI) finished the day at $31.60, then reported quarterly revenue of $11.12 billion, up 93.2% from a year earlier but short of what analysts had modelled. The forecast is where it made its case: adjusted earnings of $1.70 a share beat consensus outright, and management guided current-quarter revenue to a range of $14.5 billion to $15.5 billion, a midpoint roughly a quarter above the $11.99 billion analysts carried. CoreWeave (CRWV) ended at $90.32 and posted revenue of $2.575 billion against the $2.56 billion expected, with an adjusted loss of $1.03 a share where analysts had modelled $1.20.
Drivers
- July consumer prices arrive at 8:30 ET, and the consensus asks for a headline gain of 0.1% on the month and 3.4% over the year, with the core measure up 0.2% and 2.5%. June's headline reading fell 0.4%, so the year-over-year comparison flatters the monthly detail. Kalshi traders put only 15% odds on the annual figure printing above 3.4%, per CNBC, so the betting markets are positioned at or under the economists' consensus and a hot number would surprise both.
- Crude has now risen roughly 7% in three sessions on the Hormuz standoff, and energy costs feed the inflation report on a lag. That gap between what oil is doing now and what the July data can possibly reflect is why a hot number tomorrow would be read as inflation broadening beyond energy.
- Ten-year notes go to auction at 1:00 ET, $42 billion of them, four and a half hours after the inflation figure lands. Today's three-year sale cleared half a basis point through the market with the ten-year yield at 4.684%.