Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq slip but cap winning month for stocks

Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq slip but cap winning month for stocks

Grace O’Donnell, Jake Conley and Ines Ferré
Updated Tue, September 1, 2026 at 3:20 AM GMT+5:30
1 min read

US stocks declined on Monday after the US attacked Iran for the first time in weeks, fueling a rise in oil prices and increased bets that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates at its September meeting

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) fell 0.7%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) declined by 0.3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 0.1%, though all three major indexes posted solid gains for the month

The S&P 500 gained more than 2.5% for the month, while the Nasdaq rose more than 3%. The Dow rose 1.3%

(^GSPC)

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Renewed hostilities in the Middle East put pressure on stocks after the US struck Iranian rocket launchers that were preparing to send mines into the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices jumped on worries that the conflict could escalate again, with Brent crude futures (BZ=F) rising over $88 per barrel

The ongoing war in Iran has been a key factor keeping inflation concerns alive. On Friday, Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh delivered a speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., stating that inflation was running too hot and that the central bank has “work to do.” Over the weekend, traders lifted their bets that the Fed would raise rates by 25 basis points at its next meeting to 62%, up from roughly 40% a week ago

With earnings season largely in the rearview mirror and Monday bringing a relatively quiet day for economic data, investors will turn their attention toward the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report on Friday

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• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 8:13 PM UTC
  Ines Ferré

  Stocks fall but cap monthly wins

  U.S. stocks fell on Monday but still closed out August with solid gains, as rising oil prices fueled concerns about persistent inflation ahead of the Federal Reserve’s September policy meeting

  The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) dropped 0.7% but closed out the month with gains of roughly 1%. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) declined by 0.3%, but rose more than 2.5% during August. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) dropped 0.1%, but also finished the month with gains of more than 3.5% over the past month

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  Investors will get a read of the monthly jobs report later this week, providing a clue on how Fed officials may vote later next month when policymakers meet

  The market has given the Fed a more than 50% chance of raising interest rates by 25 basis points after Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh gave hawkish commentary last week at Jackson Hole

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 6:20 PM UTC
  Ines Ferré

  Amazon stock drops on report of planned FTC lawsuit

  Amazon (AMZN) stock tumbled more than 3% on Monday after a Wall Street Journal report said the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans to sue the e-commerce giant, accusing it of manipulating the prices businesses paid for advertising on its retail platform

  The suit, which includes a coalition of more than 20 state attorneys general, is expected to state that Amazon misled advertisers by covertly increasing the minimum amount they were required to pay to have their products’ ads featured

  The lawsuit is expected to claim that the price manipulation practice generated tens of billions of dollars in profit for the company over seven years

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 6:00 PM UTC
  Ines Ferré

  Gold on pace for best month since February

  Gold (GC=F) fell on Monday, but was still on track to close out its best month since February as central bank purchases and ETF inflows lifted demand for the hard asset

  The precious metal has risen almost 10% in August, despite a recent pullback following Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s signal that interest rate increases may be necessary to bring inflation under control

  US strikes on Iranian rocket launchers in the Strait of Hormuz region also reignited inflation fears as oil prices jumped

  Gold futures for December delivery slipped by about 1% to hover near $4,480 per troy ounce

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 5:19 PM UTC
  Jake Conley

  Bank of England chief warns frontier AI models threaten cyberattacks that could ‘

  Frontier AI models, such as those developed by OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) and Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), threaten a new realm of cyberattacks that could target and destabilize the global financial system, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Monday

  In a letter submitted to G20 financial leaders and central bank chiefs, published Monday by the Financial Stability Board — which Bailey chairs — the BOE governor wrote that frontier AI models are “showing increasingly sophisticated autonomy and problem-solving abilities, as well as threat capabilities.”

  Those capabilities constitute a particularly strong threat to the global financial system, Bailey said, arguing that those risks posed by frontier AI “will not respect national borders.”

  “The global financial system is highly interconnected, and cyber disruption can spread across jurisdictions through common technology providers, shared infrastructure, and cross-border financial activity,” Bailey wrote to the G20. “Frontier AI may have the ability materially to alter the speed, scale and economics of cyber risk, which could undermine market confidence system-wide.”

  Many jurisdictions haven’t yet established protocols to deal with such a threat, Bailey said. Addressing those gaps, the BOE governor wrote, “should in my view be a priority and would benefit all sectors of the economy, including by supporting financial stability and economic growth.”

  Bailey’s warning comes after steps by some of the US’s major financial institutions to do just that. The development of Anthropic’s most capable “Mythos” model prompted a range of concerns over its ability to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in systems previously thought secure

  While the model has not been opened for public use, a small collective of governments and major institutions has been given access to the model to use it themselves to identify security weaknesses. While the full list of participants hasn’t been published, JPMorgan Chase and Intercontinental Exchange have both been publicly confirmed as partners in what Anthropic has dubbed “Project Glasswing.”

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 4:35 PM UTC
  Grace O’Donnell

  Treasury yields spike on renewed US-Iran hostilities, higher oil prices

  US Treasury bonds came under pressure again on Monday as oil prices rose, keeping concerns about above-target inflation in focus

  The 10-year yield (^TNX) rose 4 basis points to 4.76%, its highest intraday level going back to January 2025. The 30-year yield (^TYX), meanwhile, climbed 5 basis points to 5.26%. Yields and prices have an inverse relationship, so when yields rise, bond prices fall

  On Sunday, the US struck Iranian rocket launchers, and then Iran launched strikes against US ally Jordan. With both sides appearing far apart on a ceasefire deal that would fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, expectations that higher energy prices will affect broader inflation are rattling investors, particularly as markets reprice the likelihood of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in September

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 3:25 PM UTC
  Jake Conley

  Nvidia will invest $3.5 billion in Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek, companies say Monday

  Nvidia (NVDA) has agreed to invest $3.5 billion in Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek, per a statement Monday morning, deepening Nvidia’s already large web of investments throughout the AI ecosystem

  “NVIDIA and MediaTek today announced a deepening of their longstanding collaboration to build the next generations of AI computing platforms — spanning AI infrastructure, local AI computing and automotive,” the companies said in a joint statement, noting the combination will combine Nvidia’s computing platforms with MediaTek’s chip design capabilities

  Shares in Nvidia trended up by roughly 1% on Monday morning

  The deal is set to broaden an existing partnership between the two AI companies. Under this round of investment, MediaTek will use Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion technology, among other applications, which functions as connective tissue that allows customers to plug their own chips into Nvidia’s underlying data center architecture

  NVLink Fusion will allow MediaTek to “provide hyperscalers, cloud service providers and frontier model developers with a prevalidated path to develop custom XPUs and bring them into NVIDIA NVLink™-connected, rack-scale AI factories,” the companies said in their statement

  The investment from Nvidia — adding to billions of dollars Jensen Huang’s company has invested in companies throughout the AI ecosystem — comes as Nvidia increasingly focuses on positioning its technology as the base architecture for the AI build-out, moving toward a place where the entire AI ecosystem runs on Nvidia’s systems

  “The part that people don’t see about our growth because we’re practically singular because of the nature of how we deliver products. I mean we’re the only company in the world that creates and builds, offers an entire AI factory platform, a full-stack system,” Huang said on the company’s second quarter earnings call

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 2:33 PM UTC
  Ines Ferré

  GameStop stock jumps with eBay investment expected to boost Q2 profit

  GameStop (GME) shares jumped about 3% in early trading on Monday

  The video game retailer announced preliminary results for its second quarter, saying it expects a boost in Q2 profit in part due to its stake in eBay (EBAY)

  The video game retailer said it expects net income of $290 million to $310 million for its quarter ending August 1, compared to net income of $168.6 million in the prior year’s second quarter

  GameStop converted its eBay derivative position into eBay shares, which generated about $238 million in gains. The video game retailer owns 43.4 million shares of eBay common stock worth more than $4.9 billion. The eBay stake is doing the heavy lifting for the company’s bottom line, as the company’s revenue is expected to decline

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• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 1:37 PM UTC
  Jake Conley

  US stocks fall after the opening bell as Iran war tensions flare

  US stocks fell after the opening bell on Monday after the US and Iran exchanged fire for the first time in roughly a month, sending oil prices higher and re-stoking inflation fears just as bets rise for a coming rate hike by the Federal Reserve

  The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) slipped by 0.5%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) declined by 0.4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) fell 0.3%

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  With second quarter earnings largely in the rear view after Nvidia’s (NVDA) bombastic report last week, attention has turned back toward the macro economy, with investors fresh off Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh’s speech — more hawkish than maybe expected — in Jackson Hole

  While conflict between the US and Iran appeared to calm after the initial exchange of strikes over Sunday and Monday, signs of further flare-ups could rekindle worries about higher energy prices, feeding through to above-target inflation

  Investors looking for answers will get two reads on the economy in the next two weeks, with the monthly jobs report on Friday and the CPI numbers next week

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 12:23 PM UTC
  Brian Sozzi

  After an ‘extraordinary’ earnings season, here’s the next big positive for stocks

  After a banner second quarter earnings season helped push stocks to new highs this summer, there is a new combination at play that could aid the bull run going into the fall — provided oil prices don’t explode above $100 a barrel and a hawkish Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh doesn’t begin a rate-hiking cycle

  The next stock catalyst is the one-two punch of rising analyst profit estimates and fewer estimate cuts

  Earnings are bucking the seasonal revision trend and continuing to inflect upward, Evercore ISI strategist Julian Emanuel pointed out in a new note (see the chart below)

  What’s more, estimates for the median stock in the S&P 500 (^GSPC) have risen across top-line growth, bottom-line earnings, and free cash flow returns

  “We are living in extraordinary times,” Emanuel wrote

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• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 11:42 AM UTC
  Grace O’Donnell

  It’s Tim Cook’s last day as Apple CEO. Investors are $4 trillion richer because of him

  Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley reports:

  Apple’s (AAPL) Tim Cookis stepping down as CEO today, turning over the role to senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus

  Cook will stay on at Apple as its executive chair and “assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world,” the company said in a statement

  During his time as CEO, Cook oversaw the launch of a variety of new products, including the Apple Watch, AirPods, and, more recently, the MacBook Neo. He’s also been instrumental in increasing Apple’s Services segment revenue to more than $100 billion, the company’s second-largest business behind the iPhone

  Steve Jobs hired Cook in 1998 and promoted him to executive vice president of worldwide sales in 2002, before appointing him to COO in 2005. He later took over as CEO from Jobs in 2011

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• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC
  Jared Blikre

  Wall Street’s summer calm is colliding with the year’s most volatile stretch

  Wall Street has gone quiet. The calendar says that’s about to change

  The CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX) fell to 14.13 on Friday, its lowest level of 2026. That’s a long way from the spring, when volatility briefly exploded higher with Iran war headlines before spending the summer grinding back down

  That calm tends to fade right around now

  The VIX has historically started climbing around this time of year. Its median level since 1990 sits around 16.5 in late August, rises toward 18 by mid-September, and reaches roughly 19 in early October

  That doesn’t mean stocks are destined to fall

  The VIX measures the 30-day volatility implied by S&P 500 options, or roughly how much movement options traders are pricing into the market. It says nothing about which direction the movement will take

  That distinction can get lost whenever the VIX starts rising. Stocks can rally even with elevated volatility, and they can drift lower even with subdued volatility. What changes this time of year is the range of possible outcomes. It tends to get wider

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• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 9:00 AM UTC
  Grace O’Donnell

  Good morning. Here’s what’s happening today

  Economic data:Dallas Fed manufacturing activity, August (1.6 expected, 1.3 previously)

  Earnings calendar:No notable earnings

  It’s a light day for earnings and economic data, but Apple investors take heed: Today, Tim Cook hands over the keys to new CEO John Ternus, who is expected to shepherd the iPhone maker in the AI age

  Catch up on some top stories from over the weekend:

  Americans feel they have lost their agency

  ‘More than I expected to pay’: Rents are rising at the fastest rate in over a year

  Trump reignites trade wars as Americans’ opinions of tariffs continue to drop

  Why do we feel ‘crummy’ in a good economy? Our paychecks aren’t keeping up

  Wall Street is turning Nvidia’s AI chips into a new futures market

  Retailers feel the sting as cautious consumers weigh their options

• Mon, August 31, 2026 at 8:00 AM UTC
  Grace O’Donnell

  Oil jumps as US military hits Iranian launchers

  Oil surged after fresh fighting flared up in the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting risks to flows from the Middle East after months of conflict

  Brent for November rose above $90 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate was near $86. The US military struck Iranian rocket launchers preparing to send mines into the waterway on Sunday a spokesperson for US Central Command, ending weeks of relative calm

  Crude is wrapping up a volatile month in which Brent futures have swung in a range of almost $17 a barrel. Prices have been buffeted by stop-start efforts to bring an end to the fighting, as well as a pledge by Washington that it will try to force Tehran to capitulate by ramping up efforts to isolate and cripple Iran’s economy. Still, analysts have been underwhelmed by the US actions

  Still, even without a peace deal between Washington and Tehran, about 6 million to 8 million barrels a day of crude are moving through Hormuz, according to traders monitoring cargoes. Separately, Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency reported that vessel traffic along a route approved by the Islamic Republic “is taking place on a limited basis,” with ships sakid to be paying tolls

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