Wall Street spent most of the session doing what it does best when two big catalysts collide: nothing. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped roughly 0.2% on August 26, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite barely budged, as traders sat on their hands ahead of Nvidia’s quarterly earnings and digested an inflation report that ran hotter than anyone wanted.
The July inflation rate came in at 3.7%, a touch above expectations. That number alone wouldn’t normally cause a market-wide freeze, but with Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole speech looming, investors had little appetite to make bold bets in either direction.
Nvidia delivers a statement quarter
If the regular session was a waiting game, after-hours trading was the payoff. Nvidia posted Q2 revenue of $96.22 billion, more than doubling its year-ago figure and sailing past analyst estimates of roughly $92 billion.
The star of the show, as usual, was data centers. That segment alone brought in $89 billion, a 117% jump from the prior year.
