The week of August 2 to 8, 2026 will be remembered for a single number that landed on Friday morning and turned the whole market on its head. The US economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a stunning miss against the roughly 83,000 gain economists expected, yet Wall Street closed the week at record highs. Traders read the weak labour print not as a recession alarm but as a green light for the Federal Reserve to cut, and the S&P 500 finished at a record 7,757.64, capping its strongest week since April. Crypto firmed, gold surged, and in Washington a long-awaited crypto bill was left on the table as the Senate headed for recess. Here is the week in markets, and what it means going forward. None of this is a recommendation to act on any asset.
Top Stock Stories of the Week
Equities had a rollercoaster five sessions that ended near the highs. The tone was set on Tuesday, when the Dow surged about 907 points, or 1.71 percent, to 54,085.88 and the S&P 500 closed above 7,700 for the first time, before a mid-week wobble on rising oil and yields. By Friday's close the weekly scorecard was emphatic: the S&P added roughly 3.6 percent, the Nasdaq about 5.2 percent, and the Dow near 3 percent.
Palantir and Atlassian Lead an Earnings Melt-Up
Earnings season produced violent single-name moves. Palantir surged about 29 percent after its Monday-night report crushed estimates, marking the stock's best day since February 2024 and helping power Tuesday's index rally. Software peer Atlassian jumped more than 32 percent after beating on revenue and earnings and lifting its full-year revenue growth guidance to a range of 18 to 18.5 percent, well above the roughly 14.8 percent analysts had penciled in. We flagged the AI-earnings gauntlet in the week-ahead preview.
The Trade Desk and AMD Punished on Results
The other side of the ledger was just as brutal. The Trade Desk sank about 20 percent after its second-quarter print missed, with adjusted earnings of 34 cents against a 40-cent consensus and revenue of $715 million short of the $751 million expected. Chipmaker AMD slid roughly 8 percent after hours despite a revenue beat, pressured by the competitive read-through from a fresh Nvidia partnership win. The message all week: with indexes at records, clean beats were rewarded and any blemish was punished hard.
SpaceX Whipsaws Around Its First Earnings
No stock captured the week's drama like SpaceX. Elon Musk's newly public aerospace and AI giant delivered its first-ever earnings on August 4, posting about $7.8 billion in revenue, but the stock cratered around 14 percent as roughly $101 billion of shares came unlocked. By Friday the mood flipped again, with SPCX jumping about 11 percent after Argus upgraded it to Buy with a $160 price target. We covered the unlock as it happened in the August 4 morning analysis.
Amazon Tops $3 Trillion, Friday's Movers Diverge
Mega-cap milestones stacked up too: Amazon briefly eclipsed a $3 trillion market cap for the first time, though it slipped about 2 percent on Tuesday after Jeff Bezos filed to sell roughly $4 billion of stock. Friday's session showed the same wide dispersion, with Doximity up about 33 percent and apparel name FIGS up roughly 27 percent, while Sezzle sank about 34 percent on its results.
- S&P +3.6%, Nasdaq +5.2%, Dow ~3%, the best week since April
- Palantir +29% and Atlassian +32% led the earnings winners
- The Trade Desk -20% and AMD -8% were the notable losers
- SpaceX whipsawed on its debut earnings and a ~$101B unlock; Amazon topped $3T
Top Crypto Stories of the Week
Digital assets tracked the risk-on turn but with sharp dispersion beneath the surface. Bitcoin firmed toward $65,100, up roughly 2.8 percent on the week and back near the top of its two-month range after Friday's jobs shock cooled rate-hike fears. Ether held near $1,918, again edging Bitcoin on a relative basis. Live levels and ETF-flow data sit on the ThriveInMarkets homepage.
XRP Is the Week's Worst Major
The standout laggard among the majors was XRP, which fell about 5.5 percent on the week to around $1.05. The catalyst was political rather than technical: the Senate left Washington for its August recess without taking up the crypto market structure bill, removing a near-term clarity catalyst that XRP holders had been counting on. When the regulatory calendar slipped, so did the token most tied to it.
Solana Eyes a Consensus Upgrade
Further down the top ten, Solana held near $73.87 and kept its narrative intact as attention turned to the coming Alpenglow consensus upgrade, one of the network's most significant protocol changes yet. Solana has continued to press its case as an Ethereum challenger on transaction throughput, and ETF flow data this week showed spot SOL and XRP products drawing fresh capital even as Bitcoin and Ether funds saw outflows, a small but notable rotation within the crypto ETF complex.
Security Stays in the Spotlight
The week was also a reminder that security remains crypto's soft underbelly. Fresh industry data showed H1 2026 crypto losses to hacks crossed $1 billion, and the fallout from the Coldcard wallet exploit that drained 1,367 BTC continued to ripple through the self-custody community. We broke down exactly how that flaw worked in our Coldcard hack explainer.
- Bitcoin ~$65,100 (+2.8% week), back near its range top on the rate-friendly read
- XRP -5.5%, the worst major, as the market structure bill stalled
- Solana ~$74 with the Alpenglow upgrade ahead; SOL and XRP ETFs drew inflows
- H1 hacks topped $1B; Coldcard fallout kept self-custody in focus
Regulatory & Macro
Macro was the week's true engine. The July jobs report did more than miss: payrolls turned negative for the first time in months, the unemployment rate held at 4.1 percent, and the prior two months were revised down by a combined 103,000 jobs, painting a labour market softening faster than headlines had suggested. Treasury yields fell and rate-hike bets collapsed, with traders concluding the Fed now has cover to hold, and possibly cut, at its September meeting. Scheduled releases sit on our economic calendar.
The rate-friendly shift lit a fire under gold, which surged about 2 percent Friday to near $4,338 and logged its best week since January, up roughly 5 percent. Crude was the week's wildcard, crashing about 6 percent early on renewed Iran talks before rebounding as a Strait of Hormuz war premium kept WTI holding near $78. On the policy front, the big story was what did not happen: the crypto market structure bill failed to advance before the August recess, pushing comprehensive rules further out and leaving the industry waiting on Washington once again.
- Payrolls fell 23K, unemployment 4.1%, prior months revised down 103K
- Yields fell, rate-cut bets revived into the September Fed
- Gold ~$4,338, its best week since January; WTI ~$78 on the Hormuz premium
- The crypto market structure bill stalled ahead of the Senate recess
Week Ahead: What to Watch
The rate narrative has flipped, and next week is about whether it holds. Watch these catalysts:
- Fed speakers: whether officials validate or push back on the market's revived September rate-cut bet after the jobs miss.
- July CPI: the inflation read is now the key test of the dovish story, especially with a lingering oil premium in the pipeline.
- Earnings tail: a final wave of second-quarter reports will keep single-name dispersion elevated at record index levels.
- Crypto regulation: any signal on when the market structure bill returns after recess would be the swing factor for XRP and the broader altcoin complex.
- Does the September rate-cut bet survive Fed commentary?
- July CPI is the next big test for the dovish read
- Watch gold above $4,330 and crude's Hormuz premium
- Any market structure bill timeline would move crypto
ThriveInMarkets publishes market commentary for general information only and does not provide personal investment advice. Equity figures cited are cash-session closes for the week of August 2 to 8, 2026; crypto, gold and WTI figures are live or latest prints as of August 7, 2026. Economic releases and their revisions are subject to change. Levels and scenarios mentioned are observations of what the market is watching, not instructions to buy or sell any asset.
