Weekly Markets Roundup: Warsh Reprices September as Nvidia Extends the AI Cycle

The week in markets: August 23 to 29, 2026. Chair Kevin Warsh used his first Jackson Hole keynote to put a September hike back on the table. Nvidia, Salesforce and CrowdStrike printed the AI and software tape. Bitcoin tagged a three-month high, then gave it back when hike odds jumped. The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,711.76, up 0.49 percent on the week. For last week's buyback-and-Walmart setup, see the August 22 roundup. None of this is a recommendation.

Top Stock Stories of the Week

Monday opened with gold at a three-month high, as mapped in the August 24 morning analysis. Wednesday was July PCE and Nvidia after the close. Thursday was the follow-through. Friday was Warsh. The Nasdaq Composite finished at 26,402.42, up 0.85 percent on the week. The Dow closed at 53,559.99, up 0.53 percent. Friday itself was a fade: the S&P slipped 0.2 percent after the speech.

Nvidia's 70 Percent Guide Flips, Then Fades

The beat was never the question. Fiscal second-quarter revenue was 96.22 billion dollars versus about 92.2 billion expected, up 106 percent. Adjusted EPS was 2.22 dollars versus about 2.09. Data-center revenue was 89 billion. Shares still closed Wednesday cash down 1.59 percent, then slipped again when the release hit. The reversal came on the call. CFO Colette Kress said the company expects about 70 percent revenue growth in fiscal 2028, against a Street cluster near 45 percent, and held third-quarter revenue at 108 billion dollars, plus or minus 2 percent. Gross margin is seen at 74 percent next quarter, a tick down from 75 percent in Q2, which is why the first print sold off. Thursday, as scored in the August 27 evening review, shares jumped about 9 percent to near 228 dollars. Friday they gave back about 4.6 percent. Marvell dropped about 10 percent after a beat because the gross-margin guide sat under consensus. Why it matters: the AI cycle is still a supply-constrained, multi-year revenue story.

Salesforce and CrowdStrike Answer the Software Question

The week's cleanest cash session for software was Thursday. Salesforce reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of 11.35 billion dollars and adjusted EPS of 5.90 dollars versus about 3.27 expected. A 2.6 billion dollar mark-to-market gain on Anthropic did a lot of the EPS work. Agentforce and Data 360 ARR reached nearly 3.9 billion dollars. The company raised fiscal 2027 revenue to 46.1 to 46.4 billion. Shares closed Thursday at 252.05 dollars, up 22.58 percent, the largest one-day jump since 2020. CrowdStrike printed the other side of the same window: revenue 1.47 billion dollars, adjusted EPS 0.31 dollars versus 0.29, and record net new ARR of 333 million, up 51 percent. Shares jumped about 20 percent. Why it matters: for one week, enterprise software showed that AI demand is not only a GPU story.

Dick's, PayPal and the Consumer That Still Blinks

The other side of the index was name-specific. Dick's Sporting Goods dropped 30.68 percent to 124.31 dollars on Tuesday, its worst session on record, after sales of 5.59 billion missed and full-year adjusted EPS was cut to 11 to 12 dollars from 13.50 to 14.50. The core banner printed 4.9 percent comps; Foot Locker comps fell 3.6 percent. Friday, PayPal fell about 12.4 percent after Stripe and Advent International walked away from a roughly 53 billion dollar approach. Why it matters: last week's Walmart miss was not a one-name event. Discretionary demand got repriced while mega-cap tech did the index work. We flagged Dick's in the August 26 morning analysis.

Top Crypto Stories of the Week

Digital assets converted last week's squeeze into an institutional flow story, then gave the high back when Warsh spoke. Bitcoin tagged 81,455 dollars overnight into Friday, the highest since May 15, then sat near 77,500. Ether faded toward 2,435 dollars from a midweek area near 2,500. Live levels sit on the ThriveInMarkets homepage.

Bitcoin ETFs Print a Nine-Day Streak, Then a Friday Outflow

US spot bitcoin ETFs absorbed about 2.8 billion dollars across eight sessions into Thursday, the longest inflow streak since April. BlackRock's IBIT did most of the work, including 277.6 million dollars on Thursday as bitcoin ETF assets crossed 100 billion dollars. Ether funds ran a parallel streak. Friday broke it. Spot bitcoin ETFs posted a 201.81 million dollar net outflow as hike odds jumped. Ether, Solana, XRP and Hyperliquid products still took in money that session. Why it matters: real-money wrappers carried Bitcoin through 80,000 dollars, then showed they can reverse in a single hawkish speech.

Solana Doubles Disinflation. ETF Demand Follows

The week's largest protocol story sat on Solana. Validators passed SGP-0002, the first measure through the network's new on-chain governance system, with 67.001 percent support, 0.334 points above the two-thirds bar. Kraken and Galaxy-linked validators flipped late. The mandate doubles annual disinflation from 15 percent to 30 percent, cutting projected issuance by about 18.9 million SOL over six years and bringing the 1.5 percent terminal floor forward to roughly 2029. SIMD-0550 still has to ship. Solana traded above 100 dollars into Friday, up about 20 percent over seven days. Solana ETFs took in 33.5 million dollars on Monday and 60.91 million on Thursday, with Bitwise's BSOL crossing 1 billion dollars of cumulative inflows. Why it matters: this is a supply-path change plus a wrapper bid, not just a beta bounce off Bitcoin.

XRP Flows, Tokenized Stocks on Base, and the Rest of the Top 50

XRP was an ETF story this week, not a court story. Spot XRP products added 18.47 million dollars on Thursday, taking combined assets toward 1.49 billion dollars. Monday, Coinbase put tokenized US equities live on Base for eligible non-US users: Nvidia, Apple, Meta and Alphabet first, 1:1 backed by shares held at Alpaca, with Chainlink price feeds. Day-one volume was about 10.8 million dollars. Hyperliquid HYPE ETFs kept taking inflows. Chainlink, Cardano, Dogecoin, Sui, Aptos, Near and Polygon followed the majors higher, then gave some back Friday. Why it matters: institutional demand broadened past Bitcoin. The Clarity Act slipped into September, so the wrappers did the work that legislation did not.

M&A, Partnerships, Deals

The week's largest cheque did not close. Stripe and Advent International abandoned a roughly 53 billion dollar pursuit of PayPal, a 60.50-dollar-a-share offer that would have ranked among the largest leveraged buyouts on record. The stock had already rerated toward the offer on the rumor, which is why Friday's air pocket was sharp. Salesforce expanded the Anthropic partnership and still expects the Contentful and Fin deals to close in weeks. In crypto infrastructure, BitGo bought NYDIG's institutional trading arm for 42.5 million dollars in cash and stock, plus a 15 million dollar earnout. Why it matters: the fintech LBO that would have rewritten payments did not print. The crypto deal that did is a custody firm buying a capital-markets stack.

Regulatory & Macro

Friday was the microphone. Warsh told Jackson Hole the Fed will "have work to do" if inflation is not moving to 2 percent "clearly and at sufficient speed." The 2 percent PCE objective is a "firm, fixed target." Financial conditions, he said, do not look restrictive. CME FedWatch took September hike odds from about 35 percent to about 58 percent. The 2-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.348 percent. We mapped the setup in the August 28 morning analysis and the print in the evening review. Wednesday's July PCE had already set the bar: headline 3.7 percent year over year against 3.6 expected; core matched 3.3 percent. Gold did the real work: a three-month high near 4,650 earlier in the week, then a 3 percent Friday drop to about 4,460. West Texas Intermediate faded from last week's 87-dollar area toward 83.40 as Iran and Oman mapped a temporary Hormuz corridor, covered in the August 26 morning analysis. The Clarity Act slipped into September. Why it matters: the Fed is talking hikes into a consumer that blinked at Walmart and Dick's. The next labor print is what can still change the odds into the September 15 to 16 FOMC.

Week Ahead: What to Watch

Jackson Hole is over. Next week is the labor market and the last large-cap semiconductor prints of the season.

• Tuesday, September 1: ISM manufacturing and JOLTS. Dell and Palo Alto Networks report around this window, the first confirmation prints after Nvidia and Marvell.
• Wednesday, September 2: ADP employment and the Fed Beige Book. Broadcom and Snowflake are the remaining mega-cap tests of the AI multiple.
• Friday, September 4, 12:30 UTC: August nonfarm payrolls. Consensus clusters near a 45,000 to 50,000 gain after July's 23,000-job loss. A hot print would lock September hike odds higher. A soft one would test Warsh's framework directly.
• Policy clocks: the FOMC is still September 15 to 16. The Clarity Act remains a mid-September procedural vote. Hormuz corridor talks stay the oil wildcard above 80 dollars.

ThriveInMarkets publishes market commentary for general information only and does not provide personal investment advice. Equity figures are cash-session closes for August 24 to 28, 2026. Crypto, gold and oil are as of Friday evening, August 28. Levels mentioned are observations, not instructions to buy or sell any asset.