Market Wrap · August 14, 2026
Nebius Extends Its Post-Earnings Rally and Sandisk Jumps on an Investor Day, While Broadcom and a Software Cluster Fall With No Clear Catalyst
U.S. equities closed a quiet, mixed Friday, August 14. The S&P 500 (SPY) fell 0.20% to $776.34 and the Nasdaq-100 (QQQ) fell 0.14% to $731.07, while the Russell 2000 (IWM) bucked the trend, rising 0.52% to $305.09 — small-caps outperforming large-caps on an otherwise unremarkable index day. The CBOE volatility-tracking VXX actually fell 1.35%, gold (GLD) rose 0.63% and crude oil (USO) rose 1.26%, while the dollar (UUP) slipped 0.25%. Underneath that quiet surface, individual names moved sharply in both directions.
Nebius Group rose 8.88% to $277.68, extending a rally that began two sessions earlier: on August 12, Nebius stock surged 34.14% after reporting second-quarter results in which its adjusted net loss narrowed to $33 million from $92 million a year earlier, alongside $236 million in EBITDA versus a $21 million EBITDA loss in the prior-year period, driven by what the company described as exponential demand for AI computing capacity. A Motley Fool piece on CoreWeave's own rally published Saturday grouped Nebius alongside it as having delivered an "earnings shocker," and the market continued re-rating the stock into Friday's close. GraniteShares' 2x leveraged Nebius ETF, NBIL — a position in this book — rose 17.77% to $39.64, roughly double Nebius's own move, exactly as its stated 2x daily-return mandate would predict.
SanDisk rose 7.39% to $1,641.11 after Thursday's investor day, at which management laid out long-term targets through fiscal 2030: mid-to-high-teens annual revenue growth, roughly 80% gross margins, roughly 75% operating margins, and roughly 50% free-cash-flow margins. Multiple analysts raised price targets in response; JPMorgan initiated coverage with an overweight rating and a $2,250 price target, citing the company's positioning in NAND memory and AI-inference demand.
Semiconductors were split. AMD rose 6.50% to $514.39, rebounding from a stretch in which the stock had pulled back roughly 15% from its all-time high on valuation concerns — a Motley Fool piece published Thursday argued the name's 124x trailing P/E already priced in years of growth and recommended avoiding it, one day before Friday's rebound. No single dated catalyst for Friday's specific move was found in available reporting; the gain reads as part of broader semiconductor-sector strength rather than a discrete news event. Broadcom moved the other way, falling 5.94% to $392.99, also without a same-day catalyst in available coverage — a pullback after a run that has left the stock, per multiple analyst notes this week, priced for a path toward a $4 trillion market capitalization by 2028.
Elsewhere on the tape
A cluster of enterprise-software and security names fell together with no unifying dated catalyst identified: CrowdStrike fell 3.80% to $216.95 (one Motley Fool piece tied the move to positioning ahead of the company's own upcoming investor update), Oracle fell 3.65% to $150.52, Fortinet fell 3.28% to $160.01, Palo Alto Networks fell 2.96% to $384.27, Palantir fell 2.78% to $174.04, Salesforce fell 2.56% to $196.21, and ServiceNow fell 2.55% to $124.00. Separately, Alphabet closed a $25 billion debt offering Friday, with maturities running from 2028 to 2066 and a $2.5 billion tranche not due until 2066 — a financing event discussed further in today's Opinion piece. Tempus AI fell 4.03% to $52.10 and Coinbase fell 3.53% to $148.47, both without a specific dated catalyst found in available coverage.