Weekend Update, September 8th, 2025
Index, Sector, and Asset Performance
The S&P 500 rose +0.3%, led by communication services (+5.1%, GOOGL, ETA, NFLX) and consumer discretionary (1.6%, AMZN, TSLA, Homebuilders), both historically “bull market” sectors. A weak August payroll locked in a rate cut by the Fed at the upcoming September meeting, with the market building in long odds for a 50 bp move. The S&P 500 ended the week at 6,481.50. This rally came in just four sessions as the US stock market was closed on Monday for Labor Day. The index is now up +10.4% for the year.
Industry laggards included, energy falling -3.5%, followed by a -1.7% drop in financials, a -1.1% decline in utilities and a -0.9% pullback in industrials. Materials and real estate dropped.
Alphabet (GOOGL) and Apple (AAOL) shares rallied sharply following a favorable decision for Google in the remedies portion of the antitrust case. Alphabet’s +9% jump last Wednesday was directly tied to the U.S. government diminished attempt to break up the company which was part of a decade plus long campaign to break up Big Tech. Since 2020, Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta have all been hit with antitrust allegations by the DOJ or FTC. Alphabet gained over +10% for the week and Apple added +3.2%. Along with Broadcom’s +10% gain and Tesla’s +5% pop, the Nasdaq rose +1.1%.
Broadcom (AVGO) was the leading S&P 500 stock last week, getting a big boost from a new $10 billion AI customer, OpenAI. Tesla shares climbed on Friday after the company said it wants investors to approve a compensation package for Musk that could be worth up to almost $1 trillion, or nothing. Nvidia shares fell more than -4% on the week, the worst performance among the mega caps.
Diamondback Energy ( FANG ) had the largest percentage drop in the energy sector, falling -6.8%.
Economic Indicators and Earnings Commentary
Last week’s ISM Services report was better than expected at 52.0. Still, the ISM Manufacturing and August payrolls report both missed expectations, lending to the economy is showing signs of slowing.
Last week’s jobs report was well below the 80,000 estimate expected, showing that the June downward revision in the July jobs report did not go far enough.
On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will publish a preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision to the level of nonfarm payrolls for March 2025. On Wednesday, PPI for August will be released. CPI released on Thursday and consumer sentiment on Friday.
Earnings:
After reporting a double-beat, Autodesk (ADSK) rallied over +9%, its best reaction in 13 quarters.
Dell Technologies (DELL), beat headline expectations but fell nearly -9%. Campbell’s (CPB), rallied nearly +8% for its best earnings move since 2020. Salesforce (CRM), beat its headline expectations and the market hated it. Despite 120% year-over-year growth in AI annual recurring revenue, the stock dropped for the 3rd straight quarter.
This week’s EPS reports include: Oracle (ORCL), Kroger (KR), Synopsys (SNPS), Lennar (LEN), Adobe (SDBE), and Casey General (CASY).
Commodities and Currencies
Oil continues to do little on weak demand and OPEC continues pumping to hurt Russian economics.
The US dollar weakened as expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts rose on Friday’s speech. Nine out of ten traders are betting on a Fed rate cut in September, driving dollar weakness and there is now a 65% chance that the Fed cuts 3 times in 2025.
Gold hit new ATHs at 3600+.
Bitcoin pulled back to $110,000.
Oak Harvest Weekly Stock Talk
See www.OAKHARVESTFUNDS.com for a recap of August.
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.
