U.S. stocks opened August at record highs, with Wall Street posting its best week since April. The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones both hit all-time peaks, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq led the way with a gain of more than 5%. Here is what moved markets between August 3 and 7, and what to watch next.
The headline story was a classic case of "bad news is good news." The U.S. economy added just 23,000 jobs in July, and prior figures for May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000. Normally soft hiring worries investors, but stocks rallied anyway. The logic: a cooling labor market eases the pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates high, which is generally supportive for equities.
Crude was the week's most volatile major asset. Prices slid to roughly US$79 a barrel on expectations of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which a large share of the world's seaborne oil passes. The mood flipped on Thursday when a leaked draft of the Iranian proposal - reportedly including transit tolls and a ban on U.S. and Israeli vessels - hit the wires, sending prices back up to around US$82.
The plumbing behind the AI trade
This year's best-performing stocks are no longer just the mega-cap names. Increasingly, the winners are the companies building the physical infrastructure of artificial intelligence - memory, storage and servers. A cautionary note came from SanDisk, the top performer in the S&P 500 so far in 2026: even strong results did not protect it this week, and the stock fell on a soft forward guidance. It is a reminder that in this market, the outlook can matter more than the quarter that just closed.
LATAM currencies firm as copper hits records
Regional stock markets were mixed, but Latin American currencies strengthened as the U.S. dollar weakened. Copper headed toward a record close in London on tight supply - a tailwind for the region's exporters. In politics, Abelardo de la Espriella took office as president of Colombia.
The weekly scoreboard
The Nasdaq 100 (29,722) and S&P 500 (7,758) both closed higher, while gold extended its run with a 6.3% weekly gain to around US$4,342. Mexico's S&P/BMV IPC slipped 0.6% to 66,939, and Bitcoin was roughly flat near US$64,851. The euro gained 1.7% against the dollar to 1.1561.
Biggest movers
On the winning side, Palantir (PLTR) jumped 39.8%, SpaceX (SPCX) rose 22.8% and chip designer Arm (ARM) added 17.9%. The losers were led by energy and healthcare: Chevron (CVX) fell 5.4%, AstraZeneca (AZN) dropped 5.0% and memory maker SK hynix (SKHY) slipped 4.0%.
On the radar: Meta, SpaceX and Alphabet
Meta (META) is earning more than ever - US$60.8 billion in quarterly revenue, up 28% - but its spending overshot what management had guided, and the market punished the stock, which is now down 21% over the past 12 months. It is the same tension that has defined this earnings season: heavy AI investment is rewarded only when investors can see a return on it.
Two other names are worth following. SpaceX surprised with US$7.8 billion in revenue (+92%) and, after a share unlock, bounced about 23% in two days on enthusiasm for its AI-chip venture alongside Tesla. Alphabet (GOOG), meanwhile, says its Gemini assistant now has 950 million users and reports a cloud order backlog of roughly US$514 billion.
Mood of the week: optimistic. Sentiment swung from fear to greed in a single week. Two things are worth remembering: the August-to-October stretch has historically been the weakest of the year for the S&P 500, and even Bank of America has suggested trimming risk. Stick to your plan.
The week ahead
The data highlight lands on Wednesday with the July U.S. inflation report (CPI), the single most important release of the week. Retail sales follow on Friday. On the earnings calendar: JBS and Ferguson report Monday; Super Micro, Sea and PagSeguro on Tuesday, alongside Cisco on Wednesday; and Credicorp, Nubank and Applied Materials on Thursday.
Legal Notice: Education, not advice. Past results do not guarantee future returns. Investing always involves risks.
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