This Week's Read — August 3–7, 2026
Stocks extended their rally for a second straight week, with the S&P 500 climbing 2.07% to 7,757.76. The Nasdaq Composite led, up 2.65% to 26,600.71. The Dow added 1.59% to 54,023.70 after touching an all-time high Monday, and the Russell 2000 gained 1.34%.
Friday's jobs report rewrote the Fed conversation. The economy shed 23,000 jobs in July, reversing a revised 20,000-job June gain and badly missing the roughly 83,000-95,000 economists expected. The unemployment rate actually fell, to 4.1% from 4.2%, but for the wrong reason — labor-force participation dropped to a five-year low of 61.4%. May and June payrolls were also revised down a combined 103,000. The miss sharply cut market odds of a rate increase at the September 15-16 meeting.
Earnings split into winners and a market that wanted more. Palantir crushed Q2 estimates Monday — revenue up 93% year-over-year to $1.94 billion, U.S. commercial revenue up 149% — and raised its full-year guidance; shares jumped 13% after hours. AMD beat too, with Data Center revenue more than doubling, but investors wanted a blowout rather than just a beat. The stock reversed from a 7% intraday gain Tuesday to close down roughly 5% Wednesday.
Gold and oil both had big weeks, for opposite reasons. Gold surged 7.65% to $4,408.70, jumping nearly 3% Thursday alone on safe-haven demand, a modestly weaker dollar, and fading odds of Fed tightening — and kept climbing Friday even after the jobs report hit. Oil moved on a different worry entirely: WTI rose 6.76% to $80.89 as Strait of Hormuz tensions flared back up after Iran published a restrictive draft plan for ship traffic through the strait Thursday. Vermont pump prices didn't get the memo — the statewide average eased four cents to $4.17 a gallon this week even as crude climbed nationally.
Boeing also cleared a decade-long headache: the FAA certified the 737 MAX 7 on Monday, clearing the way for Southwest Airlines to start taking delivery of roughly 30 already-assembled jets. The VIX fell 4.10% to 15.21, a sign markets shrugged off a weak jobs report and Middle East tension in the same week rather than panicking about either.
What's next: The Fed doesn't meet again until September 15-16, but next week's inflation data is seen as the next key input into that decision — July CPI lands Wednesday, PPI follows Thursday, and retail sales and consumer sentiment close out the week Friday. Earnings keep coming too, with Cerebras Systems and Applied Materials reporting mid-week and Cisco and Home Depot rounding things out.
Sources: BLS, CNBC, Fortune, Yahoo Finance, Seeking Alpha, FAA, Boeing, Vermont Business Magazine, Capital Street FX, Kiplinger, IndexBox, MarketScreener, and FRED/yfinance market data.
The views expressed here reflect my own read on the week's market activity and are intended for educational purposes only. Nothing in this post constitutes investment advice, legal advice, or a recommendation for any specific security or strategy. Every investor's situation is different — if you'd like to discuss how any of this applies to your own portfolio, I'm always happy to talk.