US Stock Market Key News Summary August 13, 2026

Market Outlook Today

US July PPI

US Weekly Initial Jobless Claims

Applied Materials Earnings

<Earnings> Cisco's AI 'Super Cycle' Drives Strong Results and Guidance, Yet Stock Falls

Cisco (CSCO-US) shares dropped over 4% after hours Wednesday (12th), despite reporting better-than-expected Q4 fiscal year 2026 earnings and revenue guidance that far exceeded market forecasts. Still, it wasn't enough to satisfy Wall Street's sky-high expectations. Before the earnings release, Wall Street had turned bullish on Cisco, driving its stock up over 60% this quarter and about 8% this month. Investors are optimistic that the networking equipment company will play a bigger role amid the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Read full article

Supermicro Soars 19% as AI Infrastructure Stocks Rally Across the Board

AI infrastructure stocks rose broadly on Wednesday (12th), following strong earnings reports from AI server hardware maker Supermicro (SMCI-US) and emerging cloud providers CoreWeave (CRWV-US) and Nebius (NBIS-US). AI hosting firms Applied Digital (APLD-US) and IREN (IREN-US) also saw their shares climb. Read full article

SpaceX Shorts Nearly 'Out of Ammo' as Stock Bounces Over 40% from August Lows

SpaceX (SPCX-US) shares staged a strong rebound from recent lows. Data shows the short interest ratio—short positions as a percentage of tradable shares—dropped from a peak of 34% last week to around 11%. Short covering has become one driver of the recent rally. According to financial data firm S3 Partners, the sharp decline in short interest was due to two main factors: short sellers buying back shares to close positions, and a significant increase in available shares after the initial lock-up period expired, diluting the short position's share of the float. Read full article

DeepSeek No Longer Dominant? Meta and NVIDIA Enter Open-Model Arena

After Chinese AI labs gained leadership in the open-weight model market in recent years, Meta (META-US) and NVIDIA (NVDA-US) launched new models this week that developers can download for free, officially entering the competitive space led by DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, and Alibaba's (BABA-US) (09988-HK) Qwen. Industry insiders say these moves clearly signal that the U.S. won’t cede the cutting-edge open-model market to Chinese players. Read full article

Can the Fed Hold Off on Hiking Next Month? Wall Street Interprets Three Signals from July CPI

The U.S. July Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in line with expectations, avoiding the feared unexpected uptick, slightly easing pressure on the Federal Reserve (Fed) to hike rates in September. Wall Street analysts identified three key signals: core inflation continues to cool, weakening labor market supports a wait-and-see stance, yet some underlying price pressures remain high, compounded by uncertain Middle East tensions and oil price outlook. Thus, while this report strengthens the case for holding rates steady in September, it’s not enough to declare the inflation alarm fully over. Read full article