This Week: July PPI Flat, Confirms CPI's Disinflation Signal — S&P 500 and Nasdaq Close at Records Applied Materials Beats, Guides Above Estimates on "Unprecedented" AI Demand Cisco Beats and Raises Guidance — Stock Falls 8.4% on Margin Concerns Workday Soars 17.8%, Tapestry Tumbles 16.5% — Earnings Night Dispersion US Threatens Indefinite Naval Blockade of Iran as Hormuz Standoff Drags On

Markets

Week Ahead

Cooler PPI Confirms the Disinflation Story, Sending Stocks to Records — Then Earnings Night Splits the AI Trade in Two.

July's Producer Price Index came in flat month-over-month, echoing Wednesday's cooler CPI and pushing the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to fresh closing records Thursday as traders priced out a September hike. But the day's real story arrived after the bell: Applied Materials beat and guided above estimates on what it called "unprecedented" AI-chip equipment demand, while Cisco beat and raised guidance too — and still fell 8.4% on gross-margin concerns. Workday soared 17.8% on its own beat; Tapestry tumbled 16.5%. Gold and silver both pulled back as easing rate-cut urgency cooled the hedge trade, while oil eased 1.8% even as Washington threatened an indefinite naval blockade of Iran.

By Lei Holdings Research

Thursday, August 13, 2026 close · Prepared Friday, August 14, 2026 · Published every weekday morning — see the full archive

SPY$777.88+0.70% Thu

QQQ$732.07+1.16% Thu

SMH$589.12+0.73% Thu

GLD$398.96−1.47% Thu

SLV$58.16−1.52% Thu

USO$125.03−1.78% Thu

USD/JPY¥159.40Thu close

New York Stock Exchange trading floor exterior — A flat July PPI print confirmed the week's disinflation narrative, pushing the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to fresh closing records Thursday. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Applied Materials Beats and Soars, Cisco Beats and Sinks 8.4% — Earnings Night Splits the AI Trade

Both semi-equipment and networking beat estimates and raised guidance Thursday after the bell. The market rewarded one and punished the other: Applied Materials' "unprecedented" AI demand overshadowed a cash-flow wrinkle, while Cisco's margin outlook overshadowed a record quarter — Piper Sandler called the guidance "conservative given the current demand environment," which wasn't enough to stop an 8.4% slide.

SMH, Thursday

+0.73%

Cisco, Thursday

−8.4%

SPY, Thursday

+0.70%

QQQ, Thursday

+1.16%

What actually happened

Applied Materials' quarter silenced its skeptics

AMAT posted record Q3 revenue, EPS of $3.50 versus $3.38 estimated, and guided Q4 revenue above Wall Street's number, per Reuters and Benzinga — "unprecedented" demand for AI-chip manufacturing gear, even as Seeking Alpha flagged a cash-flow drop worth watching. Stock up nearly 200% year-over-year heading into the print.

Why Cisco fell anyway

A beat-and-raise that still read as too conservative

Cisco's fiscal Q4 beat on record revenue and AI-driven networking demand, CEO Chuck Robbins told CNBC's Cramer the AI transition is "existential" for the industry's strongest companies — but investors weighed gross-margin headwinds against the hyperscaler order book and sold anyway, per The Motley Fool and CNBC.

SMH · VanEck Semiconductor ETF

Daily, 6 months · MA50/200, RSI(14), MACD(12,26,9)

Close $589.12
Source: FMP EOD data

Peak $668.91 (Jun 22) → trough $504.22 (Jul 29), a 24.6% drawdown → Thursday close $589.12, up 0.73% on the day and 16.8% above the trough. Now essentially at the 50-day average of $592.49 (0.57% below it); RSI climbed to 54.5 and the MACD histogram widened to +5.44 as the recovery continues to build.

Thursday's four earnings-night movers — two beat-and-raise reports with opposite stock reactions, plus a software blowout and a consumer-brand miss. Full verification of each move in Market Movers below.

Nvidia doesn't report until Aug 26, but AMAT's read-through — record equipment orders tied directly to AI-chip fabrication — is the closest proxy the market got this week. CNBC's profit-margin data (S&P 500 net margins at 16.9%, the highest on record per FactSet) is the backdrop both AMAT's beat and Cisco's margin-driven selloff have to be read against.

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Oil Slips Despite an Indefinite-Blockade Threat. Gold and Silver Give Back the Hedge Premium.

USO fell 1.8% Thursday to $125.03 even as Reuters reported the US is threatening to maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely, escalation that would normally support crude — a sign the standoff's supply-risk premium was already priced in. Gold and silver both fell more than 1.4% as cooling PPI reduced the urgency for a rate-cut hedge.

GLD · SPDR Gold Shares

Daily, 6 months · MA50/200, RSI(14), MACD(12,26,9)

Close $398.96
Source: FMP EOD data

Down 1.5% Thursday to $398.96, up just 0.12% since last Friday's close but still 4.6% above the 50-day average of $381.43. RSI eased to 61.6 and the MACD histogram held positive at +3.64 — a pullback from a stretched reading, consistent with reduced near-term hedging demand rather than a trend break.

USO · United States Oil Fund

Daily, 6 months · MA50/200, RSI(14), MACD(12,26,9)

Close $125.03
Source: FMP EOD data

Fell to $125.03 Thursday, down 1.8% on the day but still 6.0% above last Friday's $117.98 close. Now 3.6% above its 50-day average of $120.64; RSI eased to 52.3 and the MACD histogram is nearly flat at +0.08 — momentum has stalled after the two-week run, with Thursday's blockade headline not yet moving price.

Why oil fell on an escalation headline

Reuters: the US threatened an indefinite naval blockade of Iran Thursday as ceasefire talks floundered — a hardening stance that didn't push crude higher, suggesting the standoff's risk premium is already in the price

Jeremy Siegel told CNBC that if oil stays contained, there's "no way" the Fed raises rates in September — tying energy costs directly to the rate path

CNBC's "Top energy plays" piece flagged the same disconnect: oil hasn't super-spiked despite the ongoing Hormuz standoff

Why gold and silver gave back gains

ETF Trends: flat July PPI pushed rate-hike odds down further, following Wednesday's CPI — two consecutive cool prints reduce the case for holding gold as a hedge

WSJ: "Wall Street now expects the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady next month" — a steady-hold base case is a weaker setup for gold than either a cut or a hike surprise

RSI at 61.6 remains elevated versus its 6-month range — Thursday's pullback trims some of that extension without breaking the broader uptrend

USD/JPY

¥159.40

USD/JPY Thu

+0.02%

GLD wk (Fri)

+0.12%

SLV wk (Fri)

+1.15%

The yen held essentially flat at ¥159.40, still testing the ¥160 level flagged all week, as Bloomberg reported Japan remains on possible-intervention watch under PM Takaichi's government. With both CPI and PPI now behind it, the market's focus shifts to next week's July FOMC minutes for the next read on the Fed's own thinking.

What’s on the Calendar

Two consecutive cool inflation prints — CPI Wednesday, PPI Thursday — did the macro work this week; Thursday's earnings did the rest, with AMAT and Cisco showing that a beat-and-raise no longer guarantees a rally if margins are in question. Friday's Retail Sales closes out the data gauntlet.

Fri Aug 7

NFP

Non-Farm Payrolls (Jul): −23K vs +80K est.; unemployment 4.1% High vol

The first negative payrolls print this cycle. SPY and QQQ closed at records anyway as rate-cut odds collapsed — the anchor for this week's "since Friday" comparisons.

Wed Aug 12

CPI

US CPI (Jul): +0.1% MoM, +3.4% YoY, matching estimates

WSJ: "Cool Inflation Data Propels Stocks to Fresh Records." Core CPI held at 2.5%. Wall Street began pricing out a September hike immediately.

Thu Aug 13

PPI

Producer Price Index (Jul): flat MoM, confirming CPI's cooling signal High vol

ETF Trends: "Inflation Holds Steady, Rate Hike Odds Retreat." WSJ: "Wall Street now expects the Federal Reserve to hold rates steady next month." SPY and QQQ both closed at fresh records.

Thu Aug 13

AMAT / CSCO

Applied Materials and Cisco report after the close — both beat and raised guidance

Reuters: AMAT guided Q4 revenue above estimates on "unabated" AI-chip demand. CNBC: Cisco beat and raised too, but fell 8.4% anyway as Piper Sandler called the guidance conservative. Workday (+17.8%) and Tapestry (−16.5%) also reported.

Fri Aug 14

RETL

Retail Sales (Jul) High vol; Michigan Consumer Sentiment

A read on whether consumer spending is holding up as the labor market visibly cools — closes out the week's data gauntlet.

Next week

FOMC

July FOMC meeting minutes; US Manufacturing PMI

Schaeffer's Research: the minutes are the next window into how divided the Fed actually was before two straight cool inflation prints — timing that could either validate or complicate the "hold, not cut" consensus now priced in.

Flagged — unverified or single-sourced

WSJ's framing that Tim Cook made a Wednesday Houston-facility appearance "as one of his last public appearances as CEO" is a single-source aside, not a confirmed succession announcement — no Apple filing or press release corroborating an imminent CEO change was found, so it is omitted from the reporting above pending confirmation.
The US naval-blockade threat on Iran (Reuters, Thu) is a stated US position, not a confirmed operational blockade — oil's failure to rally on the headline suggests markets are treating it the same way.

Workday Soars 17.8%, Tapestry Tumbles 16.5% — Thursday's Earnings-Night Dispersion

The tofu-agent mover-scanner's staging directory was unreachable this run, so this section is built directly from Thursday's real earnings-day price action and verified against actual closes and primary news rather than the scanner's discourse matches. All four names below had clean, confirmed catalysts — no "Unexplained" flags today.

Thu Aug 13

WDAY

Workday +17.83%

Real catalyst: Workday's fiscal Q2 results beat both revenue and earnings estimates with accelerating subscription growth, per Zacks and Reuters coverage of the print. Verified against actual closes: $175.29 (Wed) → $206.45 (Thu), the single largest one-day move among the names tracked this week.

Thu Aug 13

TPR

Tapestry −16.47%

Real catalyst: WSJ's markets wrap flagged "Coach owner Tapestry tumbles" the same day Workday soared — a quarterly report that missed on the metrics that matter to the stock, per the day's earnings coverage. Verified against actual closes: $153.74 (Wed) → $128.39 (Thu).

Thu Aug 13

CSCO

Cisco −8.35%

Real catalyst: a beat-and-raise quarter that the market still sold, per CNBC and The Motley Fool — Piper Sandler called the guidance "conservative given the current demand environment," and gross-margin concerns outweighed record revenue and AI-networking demand. Verified: $123.88 (Wed) → $113.47 (Thu).

Thu Aug 13

AMAT

Applied Materials −2.48% into the close (reported after the bell)

AMAT's Q3 beat, record revenue, and above-consensus Q4 guidance were released after Thursday's 4pm close, per Reuters and GlobeNewswire — so Thursday's official close ($534.54, down from Wednesday's $548.15) predates the market's reaction to the print. Verified against actual closes; the earnings-driven move, if any, will show up in Friday's session.

How this list is built

Standing process: normally this section starts from the tofu-agent's internal mover-scanner, which flags same-day movers with a confidence score, and every name is independently re-verified against real close-to-close prices and primary news before publication — the scanner's own discourse match is never republished as the cause of a move.
Today's exception: the scanner's staging directory (an Obsidian vault path) returned a permissions error this run, so no raw signals were available to verify. Rather than skip the section, it was rebuilt from Thursday's confirmed earnings-day movers, sourced directly from FMP price data and primary earnings coverage (Reuters, CNBC, WSJ, Zacks) — the same verification standard, applied without a scanner input to start from.
Flagged: AMAT's post-close earnings reaction is not yet reflected in any close price available as of this writing — treat Thursday's −2.48% as pre-earnings drift, not a verdict on the print.

Two Cool Prints, One Divided Earnings Reaction, and an Oil Market That Shrugged

The macro half of Thursday was simple — CPI and PPI both confirmed disinflation, and stocks made new highs on it. The earnings half was not: two beat-and-raise reports produced opposite stock reactions, and an escalation headline in the Gulf didn't move oil at all.

Two consecutive cool prints did more than one could

Wednesday's CPI matched estimates; Thursday's PPI came in flat. Together they moved Wall Street from "maybe a hold" to "expects a hold," per WSJ — the second data point converted a plausible outcome into consensus, and records followed both days.

Margins, not revenue, are now the swing factor in AI-adjacent earnings

AMAT and Cisco both beat and both raised guidance. The market rewarded AMAT's "unprecedented" demand story and punished Cisco's margin outlook — CNBC's data showing S&P 500 net margins at a record 16.9% is the backdrop that makes any margin wobble stand out more, not less.

Oil's non-reaction to the blockade threat is itself a signal

A US threat to blockade Iran indefinitely would typically spike crude on supply-risk fears; USO fell 1.8% instead. Combined with CNBC's "why oil hasn't super-spiked" piece, this reads as a market that has already priced in a prolonged, contained standoff rather than an imminent supply shock.

Gold's pullback is the mirror image of the equity rally

The same cooling-inflation data that sent stocks to records reduced the case for holding gold as a rate-cut hedge — RSI easing from 67.9 Wednesday to 61.6 Thursday tracks a rotation out of the hedge trade, not a change in the metal's longer uptrend.

Next week's FOMC minutes now carry more weight than they otherwise would

Schaeffer's Research flags the July meeting minutes as next week's headline event — they'll show how divided the Fed actually was before two straight cool prints, a test of whether "hold, not cut" is really consensus or just this week's read.

Cisco's CSCO Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins told CNBC's Jim Cramer on Wednesday that the AI transition is "existential" for the industry's strongest companies, defending the company's record fiscal Q4 and raised FY27 outlook a day before the stock fell 8.4% on margin concerns despite the beat — a reminder that a confident CEO interview didn't move Thursday's print either way.

Where This Leaves Positioning

SPY $778

Thursday's record close, up 0.70% on the day. Holding above $770 keeps the "everything rally" intact into Friday's Retail Sales print.

SMH $592

The 50-day average, now just 0.6% above Thursday's close — the closest SMH has come to reclaiming it since the July drawdown. A close above would confirm the recovery is resuming.

GLD $395–399

Thursday's close sits at the low end of this range. A break below $395 would be the first real test since the rate-cut-hedge unwind began; holding it keeps the longer uptrend intact.

USO $121

The 50-day average, now 3.6% below Thursday's close. The MACD histogram flattening to +0.08 signals momentum has stalled — a close back below $121 would mark the two-week rally's undoing.

USD/JPY ¥160

Still the level Thursday's flat close approached without clearing. Bloomberg's Japan-intervention-watch reporting keeps this level live heading into next week.

FOMC minutes reveal more hawks than priced

The "hold, not cut" consensus turns out thinner than it looked

Next week's July minutes showing a more divided committee than two cool inflation prints suggested would force gold and equities to reprice the rate path — both currently leaning on a consensus that hasn't been tested by the Fed's own words yet.

Read-through: SPY pulls back from records, GLD tests $395, USD/JPY pushes through ¥160.

Retail Sales confirms the consumer is fine

A third consecutive benign data point locks in the soft-landing case

A steady Friday Retail Sales print, following two cool inflation reads, would remove the labor-market-cooling worry that's lingered since the Aug 7 payrolls miss — extending the rally without needing help from earnings season.

Read-through: SPY and QQQ extend records, SMH reclaims its 50-day average, oil stays range-bound.

Base case

Two straight cool inflation prints did the macro work; Thursday's earnings showed margins, not revenue, now decide who gets rewarded in AI-adjacent names.

Equities: SPY (+0.70%) and QQQ (+1.16%) both closed at fresh records Thursday on the flat PPI print. Beneath the index level, earnings dispersion was severe — Workday +17.8%, Applied Materials guiding above estimates, Tapestry −16.5%, and Cisco −8.4% despite a beat-and-raise quarter.

Commodities: oil fell 1.8% even as the US threatened an indefinite naval blockade of Iran — a non-reaction that suggests the standoff's risk premium is already priced in. Gold and silver both pulled back over 1.4% as cooling inflation reduced the case for holding a rate-cut hedge.

FX & rates: the yen held flat near ¥159.40, still testing ¥160 with Japan on possible-intervention watch. Wall Street now expects the Fed to hold rates steady next month, per WSJ — a consensus next week's FOMC minutes will either confirm or complicate.

The wildcard: whether Friday's Retail Sales extends the run of benign data to three, or whether Thursday's margin-driven Cisco selloff is an early signal that easy earnings reactions are over even in AI-adjacent names. The next real test isn't a data print — it's the FOMC minutes' window into how genuine the "hold" consensus is.

—

Sources

Cool Inflation Data Propels Stocks to Fresh Records — WSJ, Aug 13 2026 Stocks Hit New Highs on Inflation Relief — WSJ, Aug 13 2026 Inflation Holds Steady, Rate Hike Odds Retreat — ETF Trends, Aug 13 2026 S&P 500 Hits Record as Cooling Inflation Boosts Rate-Cut Hopes — GuruFocus, Aug 13 2026 These charts show why stocks keep rallying. Profit margins are the highest on record — CNBC, Aug 13 2026 Applied Materials forecasts quarterly revenue above estimates — Reuters, Aug 13 2026 Applied Materials Beats Q3 Estimates, Issues Strong Guidance — 'Unprecedented' Demand — Benzinga, Aug 13 2026 Applied Materials (AMAT) Beats Q3 Earnings and Revenue Estimates — Zacks, Aug 13 2026 Cisco shares slide 9% despite earnings beat and stronger-than-expected guidance — CNBC, Aug 13 2026 Cisco Falls on Margin Concerns Despite Record Revenue and AI Demand — The Motley Fool, Aug 13 2026 Cisco CEO Rejects AI Bubble Concerns — 24/7 Wall Street, Aug 13 2026 Cisco's Q4 Earnings Beat Estimates, Strong Networking Aids Revenues — Zacks, Aug 13 2026 US eyes indefinite Iran naval blockade as oil supply shortfall deepens — Reuters, Aug 13 2026 Top energy plays for the rest of the year — CNBC, Aug 13 2026 Jeremy Siegel: If oil stays near $80 there's no way the Fed raises rates in September — CNBC Television, Aug 13 2026 Japan On Possible Yen Intervention Watch — Bloomberg Markets and Finance, Aug 13 2026 The Week Ahead: July Fed Minutes, Blue-Chip Earnings on Deck — Schaeffer's Research, Aug 13 2026 Apple Showcases Texas Mac Mini Factory, New Manufacturing School — WSJ, Aug 13 2026 Price, RSI, and MACD data computed from Financial Modeling Prep (FMP) EOD data, pulled Aug 14, 2026 (last close: Thu Aug 13). Economic-calendar and earnings-calendar data — FMP. Cisco CEO confirmed current via CNBC interview footage, Aug 13 2026; Fed Chair reference from prior editions omitted this run as no new Fed remarks were made Thursday.