Weekend Update, September 2nd, 2025
Index, Sector & Asset Performance
The S&P 500 dropped -0.1% last week ending August trading with a +1.9% monthly climb. The S&P 500 closed at 6,460.26 on Friday. Post it’s early April V-bottom, the index recorded its fourth consecutive monthly gain. It is now up +4.1% for the quarter and about +10% for the year.
“Safety” sectors continue to lag, as the utilities sector had the biggest drop last week, falling -2.1%, followed by a -1.7% drop in consumer staples. Health care, consumer discretionary, real estate, and technology also declined while the materials sector was flat on the week.
Healthcare was the only one of the eleven major S&P 500 sectors in the red on a year-to-date basis through August 20th. On the back of increased hopes for Fed rate cuts, it was the comeback kid for the second part of August, and it was the best performing sector, gaining +3.2%. Good Breadth, as of Friday, 8/22, 96% of the stocks in the small-cap Russell 2,000 finished higher on the day! That ranks as a 99th percentile daily breadth reading for the index dating back 15 years. Six months after breadth readings, the Russell averaged a gain of +13.1% with gains 100% of the time.
Over the last 25 years, September ranks as the S&P 500’s worst returning month with an average decline of -1.5% and gains just 48% of the time. Since 1928, September also ranks as the weakest month with average declines -1.17%.
NextEra Energy (NEE) was the biggest decliner among utilities stocks, dropping -5.6%. In consumer staples, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) shares went flat, falling -17%, as the beverage company’s deal to acquire Dutch coffee maker Peet’s for almost $18.37 billion.
The energy sector rose +2.5%, followed by gains of +0.7% each in financial and communication services. The energy sector’s rise came as crude oil rose a bit. Best performers included shares of APA Corp. (APA) , up +7.3%, and Marathon Petroleum (MPC) , up +5.2%.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s (BABA) stock gained more than +19% after reporting a surge in revenue from AI, causing short sellers’ pain (home delivery metrics), and underscoring the steady headway it’s making against rivals in a post-DeepSeek Chinese development frenzy. Shocking to many, Chinese stocks remain one of the best performing equity asset classes the last 2 years.
Nvidia (NVDA), beat Wall Street’s expectations again, but had a slightly negative earnings reaction. Their data center revenue grew at 56% year-over-year.
Apple is set to announce its iPhone 17 on Sept 9th to increased fanfare. Leaks for the 2h2026 “foldable I-phone” have begun. We expect that upgrade cycle to finally be the “must-have” upgrade for Apple users, particularly those in the Gen Z and millennial generations.
Economic Indicators and Earnings Commentary
Data last week showed US consumer spending rose in July at the fastest pace since March, possibly pull forward of demand during the back-to-school shopping season in front of tariff induced price hikes. The PCE, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric, increased annually to the highest level in five months.
Economic data will include S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, ISM manufacturing index, August employment data as well as August automotive sales. July construction spending and factory orders will also be reported.
DELL fell -8.9% after it beat revenue and earnings, but investors fretted over a deceleration in AI growth and low margins. INTU fell -5% on the same kind of investor concerns. Workday and Twilio also saw declines on AI SAS software slowdown concerns. Conversely, Snowflake (SNOW) and MongoDB (MDB) saw business momentum acceleration on AI consumption demand models and their stocks both gained in excess of 25% on the week.
Earnings include Salesforce (CRM), Broadcom (AVGO), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Dollar Tree (DLTR) and lululemon athletica (LULU).
Commodities and Currencies
According to AAA, the national average price of a gallon of gas on 8/13 was $3.16. Gas prices are up just +3.2% this year compared to an average YTD increase of +17.9% into Labor day weekend.
Oil continues to do little on weak demand as OPEC continues pumping to hurt Russian economics, however with the weak dollar, commodities are starting to show life.
The US dollar is down -10% YTD however has it not dropped net in about 2 months. Nine out of ten traders are betting on a Fed rate cut in September, driving dollar weakness.
Gold is stuck near $3,400/oz.
Bitcoin pulled back sharply to $118k. Ethereum has become the new must have crypto hitting over $4,700, gaining over 150% in the last 3 months. Flows into Ethereum ETF’s have reached over $1billion a day.
Oak Harvest Weekly Stock Talk
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indexes are unmanaged and one cannot invest directly in an index. They do not reflect any fees, expenses or sales charges. The preceding discussion is for informational purposes only. Investing involves risk and no reference to any security listed above should be considered a buy or sell recommendation. Advisory services are provided through Oak Harvest Investment Services, LLC, a registered investment adviser.
