Nvidia added about $442 billion of market value Thursday, its biggest one-day gain since April 2025, per Bloomberg. One stock did the work of a whole session.
The S&P 500 closed up 0.7% at 7,730.99, and most of its members still finished lower. Salesforce did the rest.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.6% to 26,541.35 and the Dow added 105.56 points, or 0.2%, to 53,569.44, per AP figures for August 27. The Russell 2000 gained 0.32%, and the VIX dropped nearly 5% to 14.46, per Vista Partners' session recap. Twenty-three of the Dow's 30 members fell, by Motley Fool's count.
Salesforce jumped 22%, its best session since August 2020, per Yahoo Finance.McDonald's, Disney and Merck each dropped more than 2%.
Yahoo Finance
Volatility that low leaves no cushion for a keynote that surprises.
The 10-year Treasury yield closed near 4.68%, up for a second session. The 2-year finished at 4.24% and the 30-year at 5.20%, per Treasury constant-maturity data for August 27.
Wednesday's PCE report is the reason. July headline inflation ran 3.7% year over year against a 3.6% consensus, with core at 3.3%, per the BEA release. Rising yields drove the sell-off earlier this month.
Thursday's tape absorbed them instead, and CME futures still price September hike odds near one in three. Gold finished around $4,602 an ounce, up 0.19%, after its sharpest one-day drop in a week on the inflation print, per Trading Economics.
The metal is up about 14% over the past month.
That run is a long-end trade, not a Fed trade. The 30-year at 5.20% and the Treasury's move to at least double buybacks of long-dated debt sit underneath both.
Gold has the cleanest reaction function of anything trading this morning.
Crude gained roughly 1.7% Thursday, by the same recap. That followed a week in which more than 5% came out of the price.
The cause was policy, not demand. New U.S. sanctions on Iran shifted the confrontation toward economic pressure, and WTI settled at $82.36 Tuesday after a 3.1% fall, per CNBC.
Energy is the one input that can push the inflation math against the Fed without help from the labor market.
Warsh gives his first Jackson Hole keynote at about 10:00 a.m. ET, per the Kansas City Fed's program. It lands 19 days before the September 16-17 FOMC meeting. MNI's Chicago PMI arrives at 9:45 a.m. ET against a prior reading of 57.6.
The University of Michigan's final August sentiment follows at 10:00 a.m., with the preliminary print at 51 and one-year inflation expectations at 4.3%.
A keynote that ratifies the 3.7% PCE reading pushes the 30-year back toward the 5.24% it closed at last Friday. One that leaves September genuinely open, leaves Thursday's rally resting on a single stock.
