AI Stocks Close
🔔 AI Stocks Close — Thursday, August 20, 2026 at 2:15 PM
Closes: SPX 7,641.16 (-0.87%) · NDX/Nasdaq Composite 26,067.17 (-1.00%) · DJI 52,759.21 (-1.32%)
Day narrative: The Treasury's surprise bond-buyback rescue lasted exactly one session — yields snapped right back, with the 10-year up 4bps to 4.69% and the 30-year at 5.24%. Add a Walmart earnings gut-punch and Trump threatening an "economic D-Day" on Iran that shoved Brent over $93, and you get a broad, grinding risk-off close.
Sectors: Best Energy (+1.5%) · Worst Consumer Staples (-1.8%)
Movers:
• WMT -9.2% — beat on the top and bottom line, but same-store sales grew just 2.6% vs. 3.7% expected; management said customers are making "trade-offs" at elevated gas prices. Dragged the whole staples complex down with it.
• AAP -24.6% — the day's ugliest print, auto parts demand cratering.
• MRNA -23% — pure profit-taking after Wednesday's absurd 177% cancer-vaccine moonshot.
• MARA +15.5% — bitcoin punched above $72,600 for the first time since June, torching about $1B in shorts.
• NET -4.5%, CRWD -5.6% — software got hit hardest on the rate move; CrowdStrike also lost its CTO, Elia Zaitsev, who's leaving to launch an AI-security venture fund.
• IONQ -4.3% — quantum names extended a multiday slide, with Rigetti down alongside it. Long-duration stories hate a 5.24% long bond.
After-hours / Earnings:
• Quiet tape. No watchlist names reported; the biggest AH moves were sub-0.5% drift. MU slipped -0.4% AH giving back a sliver of its big day, AVGO ticked +0.13% higher.
Watchlist:
• MU $974.33 (+3.97% day, -0.40% AH) — the day's standout
• NVDA $216.85 (-0.33% day, +0.02% AH)
• MSFT $481.15 (-0.65% day, +0.06% AH)
• GOOGL $340.67 (-1.17% day, -0.17% AH)
• META $545.83 (-0.04% day)
• AMZN $260.11 (-2.16% day, +0.05% AH)
• AAPL $311.30 (-1.75% day, +0.04% AH)
• AMD $469.46 (+0.65% day, -0.34% AH)
• TSLA $345.13 (-1.71% day, +0.15% AH)
• PLTR $173.96 (-0.70% day)
• ARM $250.72 (+0.55% day)
• SMCI $36.50 (-0.22% day)
• ORCL $142.06 (-1.22% day, -0.22% AH)
• SOUN $6.96 (-2.79% day, +0.14% AH)
• IONQ $41.52 (-4.26% day, +0.08% AH)
• BBAI $3.07 (-3.15% day, +0.49% AH)
• AVGO $364.03 (+0.43% day, +0.13% AH)
• CRM $205.71 (-0.18% day, -0.14% AH)
• ADBE $272.09 (-0.14% day, -0.04% AH)
• IBM $233.69 (-1.46% day, +0.03% AH)
• SNOW $321.29 (-1.14% day, -0.09% AH)
• MDB $420.14 (-4.63% day, +0.05% AH)
• NET $278.90 (-4.45% day)
• CRWD $190.34 (-5.60% day, +0.22% AH)
• TSM $416.00 (+0.95% day, -0.04% AH)
• ASML $1,750.60 (-0.06% day, -0.02% AH)
Macro:
• Treasury's Bessent said buybacks "could exceed $4 billion" and floated more than doubling repurchases of 10-, 20- and 30-year paper. Market shrugged — yields rose anyway.
• Brent topped $93, WTI near $86 on Trump's Iran threat.
• VIX +7.2% to 15.96 — stress, but not panic.
• Aerospace and defense sold off hard: Boeing, Lockheed and Northrop each down about 3%.
• IPO watch: Anthropic still tracking a late-2026 listing after its confidential June filing; OpenAI has told employees 2027 is now the base case, with SpaceX's post-debut fade cited as a reason to wait.
Tomorrow: Flash August PMIs — manufacturing, services and composite — at 9:45 a.m. ET. That's the last real data point before the Jackson Hole weekend. Earnings before the bell are thin: BEKE, BJ, BKE, ZKH. Baker Hughes rig count at 1 p.m. ET. The real event is next week — Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's first Jackson Hole keynote, August 27-29.