After-hours: Friday 21 august

2026-08-24 00:36

Daily chart. Moving averages on the price chart: EMA (20) in red, EMA (50) in purple, EMA (200) in gold

Macroeconomic calendar of key events for the day

Markets, August 21: Stocks Rise on Strong Business Activity Data, but End the Week Lower; Bitcoin Tops $79,000

Stocks closed Friday higher: the Dow gained 0.98%, the S&P 500 rose 0.43%, and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.43%. The catalyst was a report showing US business activity grew at its fastest pace in more than four years.

Daily chart. At the top of each chart — the Relative Strength Index RSI (14); on the price chart — moving averages: EMA (20) in red, EMA (50) in purple, EMA (200) in gold; at the bottom — the Percentage Price Oscillator PPO (12, 26, 9)

Treasury yields stayed near multi-year highs — the Treasury's efforts to rein them in through increased bond buybacks have yet to show results, with yields holding roughly where they were before that announcement. The 10-year Treasury yield closed around 4.74%, nearing its highest closing level since January 2025; the 30-year yield, which touched a nearly 20-year high of 5.34% earlier this week, closed Friday around 5.28%. The dollar, meanwhile, continued to weaken.

Hyperscalers — the largest cloud companies, which spend more than anyone on AI infrastructure — mostly rose today, reversing yesterday's pressure amid doubts about how quickly those investments will pay off: Alphabet [GOOGL] added 1.22%, Meta [META] rose 0.75%, and Microsoft [MSFT] gained 0.43%. The exception was Amazon [AMZN], which fell 0.57%. Chip stocks traded mixed but mostly softer: Nvidia [NVDA] slipped 0.98%, Micron [MU] fell 0.77%, and Intel [INTC] dropped 2.24%.

Weekly chart. Third box — the stock's relative strength vs S&P 500 [SPX]; fourth — SCTR technical rating; bottom box — RS-Ratio and RS-Momentum components for the Relative Rotation Graph (RRG) vs S&P 500 [SPX]

The day's biggest story was crypto: bitcoin surged above $79,000 overnight for the first time since May, and was recently trading around $77,000. Crypto-linked stocks closed sharply higher: Robinhood Markets [HOOD] — the brokerage app popular with retail investors — jumped 13% to lead gains in the S&P 500. Also higher were Strategy [MSTR] — formerly MicroStrategy, which holds large bitcoin reserves on its balance sheet — Circle [CRCL] — issuer of the USDC stablecoin — and Coinbase [COIN], the largest US crypto exchange.

Among the "Magnificent Seven," Tesla [TSLA] led gains, up more than 5%, while the rest of the group closed mixed.

Weekly chart

Among other notable moves: Ross Stores [ROST] — a discount clothing chain — rose about 4.5% after raising its full-year guidance on growing consumer demand for discounted goods. BJ's Wholesale Club [BJ] — a warehouse club operator — added roughly 5.5% after raising its 2026 profit outlook.

Weekly chart

Oil was little changed following yesterday's sharp rally, which was driven by Trump's threat of an "economic D-Day" against Iran amid stalled efforts to restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. WTI closed at $86.64 a barrel, while Brent settled around $93.94.

Daily chart

Gold rose more than 2% to a three-month high of $4,604, and the dollar index slipped slightly to 98.84.

Daily chart

Back to homepage: weknow.market

Sources: TradingEconomics, Investopedia, StockCharts
Author: Igor Gurevich, laurels.team