A TON OF THINGS HAPPENED IN THE STOCK MARKET TODAY. Here's a full recap: 1. Nebius $NBIS reported Q2’26 revenue of $582.3M, beating estimates of $573M and up 454% YoY. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $236.2M versus $175M expected, compared to -$21M last year. AI Cloud revenue surged 514% YoY to $575M, operating cash flow reached $2.25B, and cash stood at $8.04B. Nebius reaffirmed FY26 guidance, now expects customer prepayments of more than $9B in 2026, and raised contracted capacity to 5 GW from prior guidance of more than 4 GW. Management said it could sell its entire 2027 capacity today, but is deliberately holding some back for higher-value immediate customer demand. $NBIS finished up 34% on the day. 2. July CPI came in cooler, with headline inflation rising just 0.1% MoM after falling 0.4% in June. Over the last 12 months, CPI rose 3.4%, down from 3.5% in June. Shelter increased 0.1% and accounted for roughly two-thirds of the monthly increase, while food also rose 0.1% and food away from home climbed 0.3%. Energy prices fell 1.5% on the month. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, rose 0.2% after being flat in June, while annual core inflation eased to 2.5% from 2.6%. Energy remains the biggest annual pressure point, up 14.7% YoY, while food is up 3.0% over the last year. 3. Bank of America $BAC plans to deploy $250B through mid-2027 across AI data centers, semiconductors, hardware, power generation, energy storage, and critical minerals, according to WSJ. The initiative will span lending, investing, capital markets, banking, and advisory work. BofA said equity investments are not the focus, but has not ruled them out for the right projects. The push also extends beyond AI infrastructure into transportation, natural gas, and water infrastructure. 4. Institutional investors are reducing U.S. tech exposure. Hedge funds, asset managers, and other large investors sold $21.6B of Nasdaq futures in the week ending August 4, the largest weekly sale on record, according to Goldman Sachs. Short sales drove the move, accounting for 72% of total selling. Hedge funds sold $11.9B, while asset managers sold $7.4B. As a result, combined institutional positioning in Nasdaq futures fell to -$5B, turning negative for the first time since May 2025 after reaching as high as +$54B in October 2025. 5. South Korea is tightening rules on single-stock leveraged ETFs again, requiring new investors to complete at least 5 days of mock trading totaling 5+ hours before buying these products. The rule takes effect August 19 and applies to investments both locally and abroad. The move follows a sharp retail wipeout in leveraged ETF products, after regulators already raised the minimum cash deposit requirement to 30M won or roughly $21,000, and extended mandatory online training for new investors to 3 hours. 6. The top 10 most active options today by contracts traded were $NVDA with 3.6M contracts, $TSLA with 2.2M contracts, $SPCX with 1.7M contracts, $MU with 1.3M contracts, $AAPL with 1.2M contracts, $OWL with 908K contracts, $INTC with 903K contracts, $META with 796K contracts, $HTZ with 725K contracts, and $SMCI with 720K contracts. 7. OpenAI’s run-rate revenue from business customers grew 32% MoM in July, outpacing 20% growth in overall run-rate revenue, according to DealBook. The gap highlights how quickly enterprise demand is becoming a larger driver of OpenAI’s growth as companies scale paid usage across AI tools, APIs, and workflow integrations. 8. Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is reportedly preparing a potential take-private bid for Wendy’s $WEN, according to FT. Trian is Wendy’s largest shareholder with a 16% stake and is assembling a consortium that could include BlueFive Capital and major franchisee Flynn Group. A formal offer could come in the coming weeks, though talks could still change or fall apart. 9. Google $GOOGL unveiled the Pixel 11 lineup, including the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold, while raising prices by $100 versus the prior generation due to a “severe” memory crunch. The lineup now starts at $899, while the foldable starts at $1,899. Google also introduced the Pixel Watch 5 at $399, adding insulin-resistance tracking, which it says is a first for the category. 10. Bill Ackman is back in Netflix $NFLX. He first bought the stock in 2022 around $350/share, investing roughly $1.1B, before selling a few months later for a 40% loss and taking a roughly $400M hit. He redeployed the capital into Google, which worked, but Netflix went on to rise about 650% from its lows. Now, with the stock down roughly 50%, Ackman is back in. His thesis is that Netflix can compound revenue at a double-digit rate, grow content costs more slowly than revenue, continue expanding margins, and use its buyback program to help drive earnings growth near 20% annually. Ackman says the current valuation is a substantial discount for a business with Netflix’s growth profile and dominant market position. He also added $V, $MA, $ICE, $ALC, and $SPGI to his portfolio. 11. The financial industry cut 14,000 jobs in July, bringing payrolls down to 9.09M, the lowest level since July 2022. This marks the sector’s 5th straight monthly decline, with total job losses of 59,000 over that stretch. Since May 2025, financial industry payrolls are down 121,000, the largest drawdown since the 2020 pandemic. Excluding the pandemic, this is the biggest contraction in financial-sector employment since the 2008 Financial Crisis, as firms accelerate AI adoption to boost productivity and reduce labor costs. 12. The S&P 500 has historically kept climbing after major breakouts to new all-time highs. Over the last 30 years, the index has risen in 13 of 17 similar instances, gaining an average of roughly 6.3% over the next 6 months. The only exceptions were 2000, 2007, 2018, and 2019, with 2000 and 2007 preceding major bear markets. Most recently, after a similar breakout in 2025, the S&P 500 gained 12.3% over the following six months. The index has now posted 26 all-time highs in 2026, following 39 record closes in 2025 and 57 in 2024. WALL STREET IS THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.
