Ringside

Pre-BellWednesday, August 5, 2026

Indexes

Tokyo and Seoul took Tuesday's American records and ran a good deal further with them. The Nikkei 225 gained 3.66% and the Kospi 3.76%, both on the same memory-and-AI names that drove the S&P 500 to 7,736.52 and the Dow to 54,085.88 the night before. What has not carried over is any urgency in the contracts that would extend those records: three of the four are within four tenths of a percent of Tuesday's settle, and the Nasdaq 100 contract is the one sitting still.

Europe is doing almost nothing by comparison, which is its own kind of information after a session like Tuesday's. The FTSE 100 at 10,878.91, the DAX at 26,209.91 and the CAC 40 at 8,663.40 all sit within three hundredths of a percent of where they finished, though Milan's FTSE MIB has pushed to another record underneath that calm, per Trading Economics.

A fifty-two-week high for the broad-market tracker (SPY) at $771.33.

Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) added 3.40% on Tuesday to $723.85, back clear of a fifty-day average at $714.83.

In the News

Rates, FX, Commodities

Treasuries have stopped where Tuesday left them. The ten-year at 4.627% and the thirty-year at 5.190% both closed six and four basis points lower on the energy repricing, and neither has moved since; the two-year, which the Federal Reserve's own path governs more than crude does, sat at 4.21% on Tuesday per Trading Economics, leaving about 42 basis points between the two.

Crude has bounced, and the Red Sea attack rather than anything from the negotiating table is why. Both benchmarks are still around a tenth lower on the week.

Technicals

A record close of 7,736.52, verified against the prior high of 7,609.78 set on June 2, leaves the broad index 240.58 points above its twenty-day average of 7,495.94 and 255.84 above the fifty-day at 7,480.68. Those two lines are now fifteen points apart, and the market has run far enough from both that the first real reference below is Monday's 7,600.50 close.

The Nasdaq Composite is the one still short of its own mark. At 26,584.99 it has recovered the fifty-day average of 25,947.13 that it lost in mid-July, but it remains 508.91 points under the 27,093.90 it closed at on June 2, and it is alone among the four majors in that position.

On the rate side, 4.627% on the ten-year leaves 11.3 basis points of room back to the 4.74% peak set in late July, and the same distance again down to the 4.53% fifty-day average. The thirty-year at 5.190% is the first sub-5.20% reading in three weeks. Neither has broken anything; both simply handed back what the Gulf added in July.

Hourly view of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which closed at $518.58 on Tuesday, up 7.00%, before the after-hours reversal.

Breakouts & Breakdowns

Breakouts

Arista Networks (ANET) — Tuesday's $190.51 close was already a fifty-two-week high; the $214.60 indicated this morning would clear it by 12.6% and put the shares 46.9 points above the fifty-day average at $167.47.

Eli Lilly (LLY) — At $1,175.00 the shares reclaim both the fifty-day average of $1,150.85 and the twenty-day at $1,174.85, two lines they have spent three weeks beneath. The June high near $1,235 is the next thing overhead.

Breakdowns

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) — $471.80 loses the fifty-day average at $514.33 and the twenty-day at $511.81 in a single gap. Below that the chart is thin until the mid-July base at $429.56.

SpaceX (SPCX) — $110.34 undoes the whole of Tuesday's 9.43% advance and sets up against the $104.83 low from its short life as a public company. The first lock-up expiry falls tomorrow.

Arista Networks (ANET) at $190.51 before this morning's gap; the fifty-day average sits at $167.47.

SpaceX (SPCX) has traded between $104.83 and $225.64 since listing.

Top Movers

Gainers

Arista Networks (ANET) is indicated 12.62% higher at $214.60 after second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.02 a share on revenue of $3.04 billion, against the $0.88 and $2.82 billion in the LSEG consensus. The third-quarter revenue guide came in above what analysts carried, which is the part that matters for a company whose customer list is four hyperscalers. Lumentum and Coherent trade off the same demand.

Eli Lilly (LLY) is 5.28% higher at $1,175.00 on its second-quarter report. The bar going in was $8.81 a share on $20.5 billion of revenue, against a full-year frame of $82 billion to $85 billion that management had already raised once alongside the first quarter. Novo Nordisk reports into the same session.

Walt Disney (DIS) is up 4.32% at $102.42 following its fiscal third quarter, released at 6:30 ET. Analysts had modelled $1.88 a share on $25.40 billion of revenue and $5.3 billion of segment operating income. The direct-to-consumer margin was the line to watch, the business having cleared a double-digit entertainment streaming margin for the first time last quarter.

Nvidia (NVDA) adds 2.18% to $216.57, taking the Arista guide as a statement about spending rather than about networking.

Losers

SpaceX (SPCX) is indicated 11.96% lower at $110.34 after its first set of results as a listed company. Revenue of $7.81 billion against the $6.93 billion modelled, up 92%, was not the number investors fixed on; capital spending of $18.37 billion, a sixfold increase and most of it artificial-intelligence infrastructure, alongside a $541 million net loss, was. The shares had closed 9.43% higher at $125.33 before any of it was public.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has been marked down to $471.80, off 9.02%, despite clearing both lines of its second quarter. Revenue of $11.54 billion rose 50% and adjusted earnings of $1.66 a share beat the $1.60 and $11.25 billion consensus, with the data center segment doubling to $6.7 billion and now 58% of the company. Lisa Su guided server processor revenue to better than 80% growth in the second half and said the data center business should more than double again in 2027, so the selling is about the price paid rather than the growth.

Uber Technologies (UBER) has given back an early gain and sits 1.18% lower at $71.17 on its own second-quarter report. The company had guided to gross bookings of $56.25 billion to $57.75 billion.

Palantir Technologies (PLTR) eases 1.55% to $160.15, which after Tuesday's 29.45% move barely registers.

Walt Disney (DIS) ended Tuesday at $98.18, below a two-hundred-day average of $103.71.

Macro Data Today

ADP is the one with a job to do. A 68,000 consensus after 98,000 continues the cooling, and it lands two days before payrolls with Tuesday's vacancies figure already pointing the same way. ISM services carries less weight than it did, but the prices-paid component inside it has been the more useful half of the report all year.

Earnings Today

The morning slate runs Walt Disney, Eli Lilly, Uber, Novo Nordisk and Western Digital. Disney had beaten the per-share estimate in twelve consecutive quarters going into this one.

Two names follow the bell: AppLovin and SanDisk. AppLovin comes in 42.9% below its fifty-two-week high of $745.61 after a year in which the advertising software story stopped being taken on trust.

Drivers

1. An announcement on the Strait of Hormuz is expected today or tomorrow, and traders have spent a week positioning as though it is already signed. Crude is down about a tenth over three sessions and the ten-year has unwound most of the war premium that took it to 4.74% in July. A 60-day arrangement with no transit fees delivers roughly what is priced; the risk sits on the other side, in a text that does not get initialled, and in the Red Sea, where the Houthis hit a Saudi vessel overnight.
2. ADP at 8:15 ET is the last labour reading with any weight before Friday's payrolls. Consensus is 68,000 after 98,000 in June, and the June vacancies figure released Tuesday came in at 7.36 million against 7.45 million expected. Two soft readings in a row would change what Friday has to do to matter.
3. Tuesday and this morning have produced a clean sorting of the artificial-intelligence trade. Palantir's 29.45% advance and Arista's guide were bought; AMD's beat and SpaceX's spending were sold. The distinction being drawn is between companies collecting the money and companies spending it, and the Nasdaq Composite is 508.91 points below its June 2 close of 27,093.90.