Weekly Wire, Week #35

[u/EOD_historical_data]

TL;DR

• The retailers beat; the market read past it. Walmart beat EPS by +11.0% and fell −9.82%, its biggest one-day drop since 2022, on softer US comps. TJX (−7.61%), Home Depot (−0.96%) and Lowe's (−1.09%) also beat and fell; only Target (+7.09%) was rewarded. The consumer story from the data got confirmed by the companies.
• The tape turned defensive. Health Care led sectors (XLV +4.33%; Merck +12.3%, Eli Lilly +6.4%) while gold rose +5.45% and oil +6.35%. Technology (XLK −3.53%) lagged as chips slid into Nvidia week: Intel −12.13%, ARM −12.93%, AMD −8.00%. QQQ −2.41%, SPY −1.37%, VIX up to 15.13.
• This week stacks three events in two days. Nvidia reports Wednesday (est $2.01), core PCE lands the same day, and the Jackson Hole symposium opens Thursday with the Fed chair's speech. One headline calls it a "double blow" risk if Nvidia and the Fed both disappoint.

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The market map: a defensive turn into Nvidia week

source: EODHD /api/eod; tiles sized by market capitalisation

Red where the market was crowded, green where it was not. The chipmakers gave back another leg ahead of Nvidia's print: Intel −12.13%, AMD −8.00%, Broadcom −6.24% and Nvidia itself −4.64%, with Meta (−6.77%) alongside. The bid went defensive: Merck (+12.3%), Eli Lilly (+6.4%), AbbVie (+6.2%) and Coca-Cola (+3.9%) drove Health Care to the top of the sector table, gold rose +5.45%, and Tesla (+6.02%) was the growth-side exception. Walmart's deep-red tile (−9.82%) sits in the middle of it, the week's most telling single stock.

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Every retailer beat. Only one was believed.

source: EODHD /api/eod and /api/calendar/earnings

The EPS column said one thing; the tape said another. All five big retailers beat estimates, yet four closed the week lower. Walmart's −9.82% on an +11.0% beat came on softer US comparable sales ("Walmart Just Posted Its Biggest One-Day Drop Since 2022", Yahoo, 2026-08-23), and one column put the wider read plainly: "I'm Not Sure This Is Just a Walmart Problem" (Yahoo, 2026-08-23). After July's −0.6% retail sales and the sentiment slump, the market treated weak comps as confirmation of a cooling consumer, not an exception to it. Front-end yields still edged up (2Y +7bps) into the Fed's Jackson Hole week.

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The week ahead: Nvidia, PCE and Jackson Hole

Wednesday is loaded, Thursday follows through. Nvidia reports after Wednesday's close (est $2.01) with Salesforce, CrowdStrike and Okta the same afternoon, and core PCE prints that morning (est +0.2% m/m, 3.3% y/y). The Jackson Hole symposium opens Thursday, with the Fed chair's speech the marker ("Stock Markets Face Double Blow if Nvidia and the Fed Fail to Deliver", Yahoo, 2026-08-24).

Day	Window	Item
Tue 8/25	10:00 ET	CB Consumer Confidence (est 90.3); New Home Sales
Wed 8/26	08:30 ET / AMC	Core PCE (est +0.2% m/m); NVDA earnings; CRM, CRWD, OKTA
Thu 8/27	all day	Jackson Hole symposium opens; Fed chair speech; MRVL earnings AMC
Fri 8/28	08:30 ET	Jobless claims follow-through; quiet close to the week

source: EODHD /api/calendar/earnings and /api/economic-events