Markets Flip Fast

Oil plunged, AI stocks surged, and last week’s biggest market fears suddenly became reasons to buy.

Author

Elie Zakhour
August 04, 2026

Market Snapshot

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Market News

Crude Awakening

The week opened with the rarest of Wall Street commodities: good news from the Middle East. Over the weekend, President Trump called off planned strikes on Iran in favor of negotiating a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, punctuating the pivot with a Truth Social post ordering everyone to "get it DONE." Oil traders obliged, and crude cratered roughly 6%, with WTI hovering near $80 after spending July flirting with triple digits. Cheaper oil means friendlier inflation math, and there is nothing this market loves more than friendly inflation math.

The scoreboard reflected the mood. The Dow ripped ~693 points higher to a record close near 53,178, the S&P 500 gained 1.48% to 7,600.5, within earshot of its own all-time high, and the Nasdaq led the pack, up 2.13% to 25,914. Small caps joined too, with the Russell 2000 up 1.73%, while the VIX curled up under 16 for a nap.

The rally's second engine was the AI trade, which spent July in the doghouse and apparently posted bail over the weekend. Alphabet jumped 4.88%, the single largest contributor to both the S&P and Nasdaq, still running victory laps on 82% Google Cloud growth. Amazon crossed $3 trillion in market value for the first time after AWS grew 37% to $42.2B, its fastest pace in more than four years. Meta added 6.02%, Microsoft 4.93%, Nvidia 2.93%. Apple slipped 1.78%, still nursing its soft-guidance hangover - every squad needs a designated driver.

Downstream of Big Tech, the neoclouds went vertical. CoreWeave spiked 19%, dragging Nebius and IREN along, after hyperscaler earnings confirmed the GPU landlord business is very much still renting at full occupancy. Energy stocks, predictably, sat this one out.

On the macro front, ISM manufacturing printed 55.6, up 2.3 points and comfortably in expansion territory. Then after the close, Palantir delivered a beat-and-raise so clean it barely left fingerprints: revenue up 93%, U.S. commercial guidance hiked to north of $3.4B, stock up 6% after hours.

The rest of the week stays loaded: SpaceX reports its first quarter as a public company today with the stock hugging post-IPO lows, Caterpillar reports as well, Trump hosts AI providers to hash out LLM security frameworks, and Friday brings the July jobs report which could heavily influence the Fed’s next decision.

Peel Take: Here’s the uncomfortable part: nothing fundamental changed in seven trading days. The same capex plans that were “alarming” in July are “validated” in August, and the oil that crashed on a post can un-crash on a post. Friday’s jobs number, not Monday’s vibes, sets the actual direction. Rallies built on diplomacy tweets have the structural integrity of a banana peel on a staircase.

What's Ripe

CoreWeave (CRWV) 19.49%

  • The GPU landlord led a full-blown neocloud stampede (Nebius and IREN came along) after hyperscaler earnings confirmed AI compute demand isn't cooling.

  • The backlog is the story: $99.4B in contracted revenue, including a $21B commitment from Meta.

  • Evercore piled on, projecting CoreWeave as one of three names soaking up the bulk of Dell's estimated $60B in FY27 AI server revenue.

  • Peel Take: When your tenants report record profits, the landlord gets to raise rent. CoreWeave is a leveraged bet on hyperscaler capex… glorious on the way up, ugly if the music ever stops. But a $99B backlog buys a lot of patience. August 11 is when the vibes have to reconcile with the P&L. Until then, the lease payments keep clearing.

Alphabet (GOOGL) 4.88% 

  • The single biggest contributor to Monday's S&P and Nasdaq gains, closing near $375 as last week's 82% Google Cloud growth continues to do laps around the "alarming capex" narrative it replaced.

  • The real kicker: Berkshire's Greg Abel disclosed a $23B Alphabet position - now the conglomerate's No. 5 holding - funded in part by cutting Chevron.

  • Same company, same spending plan, completely different market reception… the cleanest case study in narrative-driven price action you'll see all year.

  • Peel Take: When the world’s most famous value shop backs up the truck for a Mag 7 name, one of two things is true: either Alphabet is still cheap relative to its growth, or value investing now includes AI capex on faith. Given Cloud is compounding at 82%, we lean toward the former. Berkshire showed up twenty years late to Google… and somehow exactly on time.

What's Rotten

GameStop (GME) 12.25%

  • The OG meme stock announced a private exchange of $1.4B in convertible notes for common stock - retiring debt without spending a dime of cash, a magic trick where the rabbit is pulled out of shareholders' pockets.

  • Shares touched $18.56 intraday, the lowest level since August 2024, before settling near $19.

  • The math is simple and brutal: less debt on the balance sheet, a flood of new shares in the float, and a market cap that keeps drifting further from its 2021 fan fiction.

  • Peel Take: Swapping converts for equity is balance-sheet yoga… impressively flexible, painful to watch. The cash pile stays untouched while existing holders quietly foot the bill through dilution. Turns out diamond hands were actually amber: everything from 2021 perfectly preserved, including the cost basis.

AstraZeneca (AZN) 6.88%

  • A Phase 3 oncology trial whiffed on its primary overall survival endpoint - the exact kind of headline pharma investors have nightmares about, compounded by U.S. drug-price negotiations squeezing future margins.

  • Then the FT reported AZN has held preliminary merger talks with Bristol Myers Squibb toward a ~$400B combined giant, and analysts described themselves as "perplexed"... never the adjective you want attached to your M&A strategy.

  • Peel Take: Markets can forgive a trial failure or a confusing megadeal… just not both before lunch. Merging with a company facing its own loss-of-exclusivity wave to solve your pipeline problem is two people who can’t swim sharing one life jacket. Until management explains the strategic logic, "perplexed" is the price target.

🧠 Technical Trip

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🦈 Deal Dispatch

  • Pharma goes jumbo: AstraZeneca held preliminary talks with Bristol Myers Squibb on a merger valuing the combined company near $400B

  • CNS consolidation: Supernus and Indivior agreed to an all-stock merger of equals - 1.5401 Indivior shares per Supernus share plus a $1B pre-closing special dividend

  • Game over, literally: EA's $55B take-private closes on or about August 4 (today) with Saudi Arabia's PIF taking 93.4%, Silver Lake 5.5%, and Affinity Partners 1.1%

  • Biotech backdoor: Synlogic inked an all-stock reverse merger with Caldera Therapeutics, which raised a ~$278M PIPE from healthcare institutions

Student Success Corner

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

A company generates $500 million in revenue with a 20% EBITDA margin. Revenue grows by 10%, while the EBITDA margin increases to 22%. By approximately what percentage does EBITDA increase?

Answer: 21%

Today

A company earns $200 million in net income and has 100 million shares outstanding. It then issues 25 million new shares, while net income remains unchanged. By approximately what percentage does earnings per share decline?

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