Market Wrap · August 5, 2026
SpaceX and AMD Fall Despite Record Quarters as Nvidia Wins Exclusivity and Lockup Looms; Gold Jumps 4%
U.S. equities finished mixed but mostly lower on Wednesday, August 5. The S&P 500 (SPY) fell 0.20% to $769.79, the Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) fell 0.90% to $717.30, the Russell 2000 (IWM) fell 0.64% to $299.77, while the Dow (DIA) held up better, rising 0.44% to $542.81. Semiconductors (SMH) declined 1.04%, but gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) each jumped 4.14%, to $389.64 and $56.07 respectively — one of the sharper precious-metals moves of the summer, alongside a 3.57% drop in the VXX volatility tracker.
The session’s two biggest single-name stories both involved earnings beats that got sold anyway. SpaceX reported second-quarter revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% year over year, and guided to a $100 billion annual run rate by December and $1 trillion of revenue by 2030 — then fell 13.61% to $108.27. The drop followed reports of $18.4 billion in Q2 capital expenditures, investor skepticism about the economics of its planned orbital data centers, and the looming expiration of its post-IPO lockup: roughly 911.5 million insider shares become eligible for sale starting Thursday, August 6.
AMD fell 7.04% to $482.05 despite record quarterly revenue of $11.5 billion, up 50% year over year, with data-center revenue doubling to $6.7 billion. The stock dropped after Elon Musk announced SpaceX would use Nvidia exclusively for its AI chip needs going forward, and after AMD guided to flat 56% gross margins for the third quarter despite 41% revenue growth, alongside capital spending that nearly tripled to $808 million. Nvidia (NVDA) rose 3.43% to $219.22 on the exclusivity news.
Elsewhere on the tape
SanDisk fell 5.40%, Uber fell 5.29%, Applied Digital fell 4.48%, Super Micro Computer fell 4.32%, IonQ fell 4.29%, and Alphabet fell 4.03% — a broadly weak day for AI-infrastructure-adjacent names. Vertiv (VRT) was a standout gainer, up 2.97%.