Wednesday's holding pattern turned into a Thursday chase.
Once the market had a night to sit with Nvidia's 70% forward guide, the "AI capex peak" chorus lost its rhythm and the tape did what it hadn't done all week: paid up for growth.
Salesforce delivered the second data point the software bulls had been waiting on, CrowdStrike added a third, and by the close the Nasdaq had recovered the flatline of the prior session with room to spare.
Underneath that ride, though, the bond market was ticking the other way, and Kevin Warsh's Friday appearance is still the event that decides whether Thursday's mood carries into the weekend.
The Rundown
- The AI trade got the multi-year runway it was asking for, and equity indices priced it fast.
- Enterprise software delivered two headline post-earnings moves on the same theme.
- Rates ground higher on in-line PCE and a firm labor read, keeping the Fed setup tight.
- Jackson Hole is the pivot: markets want a tone read from the new chair, not a policy signal.
The tape finally picked a direction
Thursday's session did the work Wednesday refused to do. The Nasdaq closed up 1.57%, the S&P 500 added 0.7%, and the Dow (DJI | ???0.20%) barely moved, a typical shape for a session where the leadership sits squarely in mega-cap tech and the industrial rotation stays parked. Semiconductors ran on Nvidia's coat-tails, and the software complex found buyers on the read-through from Salesforce.
Underneath the rally, the bond market kept doing its own thing.
Yields ticked higher after the July PCE print landed roughly in line with expectations, which the market read as confirmation rather than relief. Weekly jobless claims came in at 203,000 versus the 208,000 estimate, which reinforced the "labor is not cracking" thread that has been running through the July data.
The euro/dollar drifted to 1.1651. None of that changes the December pricing that got locked in earlier this week, but it does raise the bar for what Warsh has to say Friday to move the curve either way.
Nvidia's number keeps compounding
NVIDIA CORP (NVDA | ???8.74%) closed up nearly 9%, adding roughly $441 billion in market cap in a single session, a move that only makes sense in the context of Wednesday night's guidance shift.
Colette Kress's 70% FY27/28 growth number sits against a sell-side consensus of 45%, which is the sort of delta that reprices the whole AI supply chain rather than just the parent stock.
Goldman Sachs took the number seriously and lifted its price target to $300, arguing that Nvidia's own guide is likely conservative if the partnership pipeline with hyperscalers keeps closing the supply-demand gap. The desk also flagged margin trajectory and the commitment to return more than 50% of excess free cash flow as the two lines that will keep long-only holders comfortable through the next capex cycle.
The read-through carried cleanly.
INTEL CORP (INTC | ???4.36%) and BROADCOM INC (AVGO | ???4.49%) both took a leg higher on the sector bid.
MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC (MU | ???0.32%) closed slightly weaker despite the incremental positive that Nvidia is willing to pay up for memory next year, a good example of how the market can price a positive read-through into a name well before the print.
SANDISK CORP (SNDK | ???0.96%) leaked despite the news that its Kioxia joint venture will absorb more than $31 billion of Japanese investment to expand flash supply. The capacity story is a supply-side positive for the industry over the medium term, but on a single-day tape it reads as future gross-margin pressure.
Salesforce, CrowdStrike, and the software double header
The SALESFORCE INC (CRM | ???22.58%) print was the second thread of the day and, honestly, the one I think matters most for the broader software complex.
- Q2 revenue climbed 11% to $11.4 billion, but the line the buy-side wanted to see was current remaining performance obligation - the twelve-month bookings backlog - accelerating past expectations. It did.
- Annual recurring revenue from the AI and data portfolio doubled year-on-year.
Jefferies moved its target to $300 and said the reacceleration debate has essentially been settled. Barclays went to $276 and pointed at Claudeforce, the extended Anthropic partnership, as an incremental optionality lever. The stock closed at $252.05.
CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS INC - A (CRWD | ???20.50%) ran even harder in percentage terms, up more than 20% on what George Kurtz called the best quarter in the company's history.
The setup is exactly the one investors have been waiting on since the outage year rolled off the base: strong bookings, a raised guide, and enough operating leverage on the model to justify a re-rate.
OKTA INC (OKTA | ???28.63%) delivered the largest single-day move of the group. A Q3 beat on both the top and bottom line, with management crediting AI-driven demand for identity protection, was enough to push the stock to a magnitude that says the buy-side had been under-positioned for months.
VEEVA SYSTEMS INC-CLASS A (VEEV | ???15.20%) rounded out the software chase with a beat and a raised full-year guide that came in well above consensus.
Marvell delivered the numbers, and the tape sold them anyway
MARVELL TECHNOLOGY INC (MRVL | ???1.49%) closed slightly weaker in the regular session and then took a bigger hit in extended trading despite delivering a genuinely strong report.
- Adjusted EPS of $0.94 versus $0.67 a year ago and roughly in line with the $0.93 consensus.
- Revenue up 37% to $2.74 billion, ahead of the $2.72 billion tape.
- Data center revenue grew 46% year-on-year, an acceleration, not a deceleration, which is exactly what the AI-chip bulls want to see.
Matt Murphy called AI bookings "exceptionally robust" and raised both FY27 and FY28 revenue guides.
The market's response tells you something about where sentiment sits on the second-tier AI silicon names.
The stock is up around 170% year-to-date, which means beating and raising is no longer a bull case in itself; it's the entry price to be taken seriously. The after-hours slide of roughly 8% during the analyst call, came from questions the company didn't fully answer on the expanded Google custom-chip partnership.
Best Buy raises, gets sold
BEST BUY CO INC (BBY | ???4.44%) provided a useful counterweight to the tech ride. Guidance was raised, but the market kept fixating on margin trajectory and the shape of the back half.
It is the same pattern I've been flagging all quarter: mid-tier consumer names don't get credit for a raise if the composition of that raise doesn't convince the desk that the second-half acceleration is durable. Compare that to the Abercrombie print on Wednesday, the difference in reaction size (one blowout, one shrug) is a decent proxy for how narrow this market's tolerance for "good enough" has become.
US Market Breadth
Latest article: August 23 after market close (link)
Current Market breadth: August 27 after market close - Neutral (no change)
Conclusion
Thursday's session was the release valve Wednesday needed.
Nvidia's number turned a defensive tape into an aggressive one in a single overnight window, and the follow-through in Salesforce, CrowdStrike, Okta and Veeva makes it hard to argue the move was just a single-name story. What still worries me is the shape of the bond market against that risk-on move.
Yields are grinding higher into a Fed appearance from a chair who has publicly said he won't preview policy, which means the market will read tone, not text, and tone is easier to get wrong.
My take is that the setup rewards discipline: the multi-year AI story got a stronger anchor Thursday, but so did the case for a Fed that keeps optionality on the table. Friday is about not giving back what Thursday paid for.
ChartMill Market Desk - Kristoff
With regard to the stocks discussed in the article above; the author owns individual shares in Nvidia.
This daily update is prepared by ChartMill for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own due diligence before making investment decisions.
Read full article here »
View the Zacks #1 Rank List
Nvidia's Guide Ignites a Broad AI Bid Ahead of Warsh's Jackson Hole Debut
Wednesday's holding pattern turned into a Thursday chase.
Once the market had a night to sit with Nvidia's 70% forward guide, the "AI capex peak" chorus lost its rhythm and the tape did what it hadn't done all week: paid up for growth.
Salesforce delivered the second data point the software bulls had been waiting on, CrowdStrike added a third, and by the close the Nasdaq had recovered the flatline of the prior session with room to spare.
Underneath that ride, though, the bond market was ticking the other way, and Kevin Warsh's Friday appearance is still the event that decides whether Thursday's mood carries into the weekend.
The Rundown
The tape finally picked a direction
Thursday's session did the work Wednesday refused to do. The Nasdaq closed up 1.57%, the S&P 500 added 0.7%, and the Dow (DJI | ???0.20%) barely moved, a typical shape for a session where the leadership sits squarely in mega-cap tech and the industrial rotation stays parked. Semiconductors ran on Nvidia's coat-tails, and the software complex found buyers on the read-through from Salesforce.
Underneath the rally, the bond market kept doing its own thing.
Yields ticked higher after the July PCE print landed roughly in line with expectations, which the market read as confirmation rather than relief. Weekly jobless claims came in at 203,000 versus the 208,000 estimate, which reinforced the "labor is not cracking" thread that has been running through the July data.
The euro/dollar drifted to 1.1651. None of that changes the December pricing that got locked in earlier this week, but it does raise the bar for what Warsh has to say Friday to move the curve either way.
Nvidia's number keeps compounding
NVIDIA CORP (NVDA | ???8.74%) closed up nearly 9%, adding roughly $441 billion in market cap in a single session, a move that only makes sense in the context of Wednesday night's guidance shift.
Colette Kress's 70% FY27/28 growth number sits against a sell-side consensus of 45%, which is the sort of delta that reprices the whole AI supply chain rather than just the parent stock.
Goldman Sachs took the number seriously and lifted its price target to $300, arguing that Nvidia's own guide is likely conservative if the partnership pipeline with hyperscalers keeps closing the supply-demand gap. The desk also flagged margin trajectory and the commitment to return more than 50% of excess free cash flow as the two lines that will keep long-only holders comfortable through the next capex cycle.
The read-through carried cleanly.
INTEL CORP (INTC | ???4.36%) and BROADCOM INC (AVGO | ???4.49%) both took a leg higher on the sector bid.
MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC (MU | ???0.32%) closed slightly weaker despite the incremental positive that Nvidia is willing to pay up for memory next year, a good example of how the market can price a positive read-through into a name well before the print.
SANDISK CORP (SNDK | ???0.96%) leaked despite the news that its Kioxia joint venture will absorb more than $31 billion of Japanese investment to expand flash supply. The capacity story is a supply-side positive for the industry over the medium term, but on a single-day tape it reads as future gross-margin pressure.
Salesforce, CrowdStrike, and the software double header
The SALESFORCE INC (CRM | ???22.58%) print was the second thread of the day and, honestly, the one I think matters most for the broader software complex.
Jefferies moved its target to $300 and said the reacceleration debate has essentially been settled. Barclays went to $276 and pointed at Claudeforce, the extended Anthropic partnership, as an incremental optionality lever. The stock closed at $252.05.
CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS INC - A (CRWD | ???20.50%) ran even harder in percentage terms, up more than 20% on what George Kurtz called the best quarter in the company's history.
The setup is exactly the one investors have been waiting on since the outage year rolled off the base: strong bookings, a raised guide, and enough operating leverage on the model to justify a re-rate.
OKTA INC (OKTA | ???28.63%) delivered the largest single-day move of the group. A Q3 beat on both the top and bottom line, with management crediting AI-driven demand for identity protection, was enough to push the stock to a magnitude that says the buy-side had been under-positioned for months.
VEEVA SYSTEMS INC-CLASS A (VEEV | ???15.20%) rounded out the software chase with a beat and a raised full-year guide that came in well above consensus.
Marvell delivered the numbers, and the tape sold them anyway
MARVELL TECHNOLOGY INC (MRVL | ???1.49%) closed slightly weaker in the regular session and then took a bigger hit in extended trading despite delivering a genuinely strong report.
Matt Murphy called AI bookings "exceptionally robust" and raised both FY27 and FY28 revenue guides.
The market's response tells you something about where sentiment sits on the second-tier AI silicon names.
The stock is up around 170% year-to-date, which means beating and raising is no longer a bull case in itself; it's the entry price to be taken seriously. The after-hours slide of roughly 8% during the analyst call, came from questions the company didn't fully answer on the expanded Google custom-chip partnership.
Best Buy raises, gets sold
BEST BUY CO INC (BBY | ???4.44%) provided a useful counterweight to the tech ride. Guidance was raised, but the market kept fixating on margin trajectory and the shape of the back half.
It is the same pattern I've been flagging all quarter: mid-tier consumer names don't get credit for a raise if the composition of that raise doesn't convince the desk that the second-half acceleration is durable. Compare that to the Abercrombie print on Wednesday, the difference in reaction size (one blowout, one shrug) is a decent proxy for how narrow this market's tolerance for "good enough" has become.
US Market Breadth
Latest article: August 23 after market close (link)
Current Market breadth: August 27 after market close - Neutral (no change)
Conclusion
Thursday's session was the release valve Wednesday needed.
Nvidia's number turned a defensive tape into an aggressive one in a single overnight window, and the follow-through in Salesforce, CrowdStrike, Okta and Veeva makes it hard to argue the move was just a single-name story. What still worries me is the shape of the bond market against that risk-on move.
Yields are grinding higher into a Fed appearance from a chair who has publicly said he won't preview policy, which means the market will read tone, not text, and tone is easier to get wrong.
My take is that the setup rewards discipline: the multi-year AI story got a stronger anchor Thursday, but so did the case for a Fed that keeps optionality on the table. Friday is about not giving back what Thursday paid for.
ChartMill Market Desk - Kristoff
With regard to the stocks discussed in the article above; the author owns individual shares in Nvidia.
This daily update is prepared by ChartMill for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own due diligence before making investment decisions.
Read full article here »