Pre-Market Brief | Friday, August 14, 2026
Research Desk · August 14, 2026
The S&P closed at a record Thursday.
Applied Materials delivered the best quarter in its history last night and the stock is down 5 percent.
Retail sales land at 8:30.
Joel's been featured on CNBC and in publications like Barron's, Forbes, Seeking Alpha, and the Harvard Business Review,...
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Where Futures Sit
S&P 500 futures are hovering just above the flat line.
Nasdaq 100 futures are up about 0.2 percent. Dow futures are down roughly 108 points, or 0.2 percent.
Thursday was a record session. The S&P 500 rose 0.65 percent to close at 7,798.99, after touching an intraday high of 7,816.70. The Nasdaq Composite added 0.81 percent to 26,803.03. The Dow finished up 69.72 points at 53,839.99.
Two of the three major benchmarks are on pace for a third straight weekly gain.
Because two massive economic forces are colliding in real-time, and the result is set to upend everything we thought we knew about investing. The first force:
We're living through the fastest rate of technological change in human history.
Macro Pulse
July retail sales hit at 8:30 AM ET. It is the only scheduled number that matters today, and it lands two business days before Walmart and Target tell us the same story with real receipts.
Oil turned higher in early trade after the US said its naval blockade of Iranian ports could continue indefinitely. That puts Strait of Hormuz flows back on the table heading into a weekend.
For context, Brent settled Thursday at $87.07 and West Texas Intermediate at $81.25, both down more than 2 percent. Asia was firm overnight, with South Korea's Kospi up more than 1.4 percent and Japan's Nikkei adding roughly 0.8 percent.
If Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are right... this won't be like the crashes we're used to.
What's about to hit America next could keep your portfolio in the red for 10 years or longer - unless you make a big change now.
To hear about this decade-long crisis now being predicted by multiple Wall Street banks...
Stock Highlight: Applied Materials (AMAT)
Applied Materials does not make chips. It makes the machines that make chips.
Think of the gold rush. Applied Materials is not panning the river. It sells the picks, the shovels, and the sluice boxes to TSMC, Samsung, SK hynix, Micron and Intel. Every advanced chip in an AI data center passes through its deposition, etch and inspection tools.
Last night that business printed a record. Revenue came in at $9.12 billion, up 25 percent from a year ago and above the roughly $9 billion Wall Street expected. Adjusted earnings were $3.50 per share. The semiconductor systems division did $7.04 billion.
Management guided the October quarter to $10.25 billion. Cash flow hit a record $3.04 billion. Margins expanded for a thirteenth straight quarter, and China fell to 28 percent of revenue from 35 percent, which cuts export-control exposure rather than adding to it.
The stock is down more than 5 percent premarket.
It's wildly profitable - Over $3 billion in operating income.
It has a partnership with the hottest AI stock on Wall Street.
And Trump has publicly backed it?
Get the details on #1 AI energy stock here.
Here is the read on why. AMAT has roughly doubled in 2026 and is up close to 194 percent over twelve months. It closed Thursday near $553 against a trailing price-to-earnings ratio above 50. When a stock arrives at its own earnings date already priced for a perfect quarter, a merely excellent quarter is a reason to sell.
The bull case is improving demand visibility and management talking up another growth year in 2027. The bear case is paying a peak multiple for a cyclical toolmaker whose customers spend in waves.
Both are true this morning. The business got better. The expectations got harder.
Artificial intelligence stocks pay zero dividends.
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Tickers To Watch
AMAT: Down over 5 percent premarket on a record quarter. Watch whether chip peers follow or shrug it off.
RDDT: Up roughly 12 percent ahead of joining the S&P 500 on August 18. Index buying, not new fundamentals.
GLOB: Fell about 13.6 percent after hours on a cut to full-year guidance.
WMT, TGT: Report next week. Today's retail sales print sets the expectation bar.
NVDA: Reports August 26. The chip complex trades in its shadow until then.
That the biggest profits are already off the table. But nothing could be further from the truth …
The AI frenzy has already minted 500,000 new millionaires in the U.S. alone … And it's just getting started.
In fact, AI is about to catch its Second Wind … and potentially explode into the greatest boom we've ever seen.
Bottom Line
A record close, a third weekly gain in reach, and the best earnings report of the week getting sold hard. That combination tells you where expectations sit.
For an investor drawing income from a portfolio, the specific risk today is not the news. It is the temptation to add to a semiconductor position that has already doubled this year because the headline numbers looked good.
The secondary risk is a Friday close with Hormuz headlines still open. Weekend gaps are unpaid overtime for your nerves.
Nothing on today's calendar requires action before 8:30.
It's a true leading indicator, not another chart pattern, and it works especially well on lower-priced stocks.
He recorded a free training that shows exactly how it works -
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