[Recap] U.S. Stock Market, Aug 27 2026: Nvidia Surges 8.7% on Earnings, Nasdaq Leads with a 1.57% Gain

Hey everyone, Hirokichi here. Today I’m recapping the U.S. stock market for August 27, 2026. Nvidia’s earnings were the clear headline of the day, and the stock’s wild swing after the report made for a pretty thrilling session to watch, so let’s go through it step by step.

Nasdaq leads the way as the S&P 500 climbs back to 7,731

Let’s start with the headline numbers. The S&P 500 closed up 0.72% (+55.29 points) at 7,731, the Dow Jones rose 0.20% (+105.56 points) to 53,569.44, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.57% (+411.16 points) to 26,541.

Lined up like this, it’s clear the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained the most — and the reason, as I’ll get to below, is Nvidia’s earnings. For what it’s worth, the S&P 500 is still below its closing record of 7,757.64 set on August 7, so “clawing back” is a more accurate description than “new record.”

Still, the S&P 500 has now hit 27 record closes in 2026 alone, so zooming out, this has been a genuinely strong year. It’s worth not getting too caught up in any single day’s move — the bigger picture is still an uptrend.

Rate-cut hopes are also fueling the rally — September odds top 80%

Before diving into Nvidia, it’s worth touching on the broader backdrop. Fed Chair Powell spoke at the Jackson Hole symposium (the Fed’s annual economic conference) in late August and flagged rising risks to the labor market, suggesting policy needs to lean in a more forward-leaning direction. Markets responded by pushing the probability of a rate cut at the September 16-17 FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting to over 80%.

When rate-cut expectations rise, the discount rate used to value future corporate earnings tends to fall, which is typically a tailwind for growth stocks in particular. The tech-led rally on this particular day makes a lot more sense once you factor in this shift in rate expectations sitting underneath it.

Nvidia steals the show — an early dip flips into an 8.7% surge

The day’s biggest event was Nvidia’s earnings, released after the close on August 26. Revenue came in at $96.2 billion, up 106% year over year, while adjusted EPS (earnings per share) of $2.22 beat the $2.10 consensus. Net income hit $59.6 billion, also up sharply from a year earlier.

The forward guidance was the real story. Nvidia guided next quarter’s (August-October 2026) revenue to roughly $108.0 billion, above the $104.2-104.8 billion analysts expected. Even bigger was the outlook for the fiscal year ending January 2028: management pointed to roughly 70% year-over-year growth, nearly double what the market had priced in. On top of that, Nvidia announced plans to supply an additional 2 million GPUs to AWS (Amazon’s cloud business) through 2027-2028, reinforcing the case that AI agent demand keeps broadening out.

What I found most interesting was the price action itself. Shares initially sold off right after the report on a “sell the news” reaction, but buying took over once the CFO laid out that bullish medium-term outlook on the call. The stock ultimately closed up 8.74% at $227.98. That single-day gain added more than $43.5 billion in market cap, and a large chunk of the S&P 500’s advance that day can be traced back to this one stock.

A mixed bag in semis — Broadcom rides along, AMD and Micron slip

Nvidia’s strong report rippled through the rest of the semiconductor and AI trade. Broadcom, which supplies data-center chips, jumped 4.49%, Tesla added 2.28%, and Microsoft rose 1.15%.

On the flip side, Nvidia rival AMD struggled to keep pace, and memory giant Micron Technology fell 2.76%. That move in Micron looks tied to a comment during Nvidia’s call that rising memory prices would weigh a bit on gross margin (profit margin) next quarter. It’s a neat illustration of how the same piece of news can cut in opposite directions depending on whether a company sits on the GPU side or the memory-supply side of the AI trade.

Broadcom’s own story is a bit different — its growth is coming from custom AI chips built for specific workloads and sold to major cloud providers. It’s easy to lump everything together as “AI stocks,” but once you look at exactly where each company sits in the AI supply chain, the divergence in price action starts to make more sense.

Only tech actually rallied — the market’s internals were weaker than they looked

Looking only at the indexes, this reads as a straightforwardly good day. Sector performance tells a different story.

Only two sectors finished higher: Technology (+2.55%) and Energy (+0.41%). Financials (-0.54%), Health Care (-0.60%), and Utilities (-0.78%) all closed lower. The equal-weight version of the S&P 500 — which treats every stock the same regardless of size — actually finished the day in negative territory, meaning more stocks fell than rose.

In other words, this was a narrow rally driven almost entirely by one company’s earnings report. Personally, I think it’s worth keeping an eye on days like this, where the index is being carried by a handful of names — if that one company’s outlook stumbles down the road, the broader index can swing hard in response.

What to watch next

Three things I’m keeping an eye on from here. (1) Whether Nvidia’s results push other AI-related companies — big cloud players and data-center operators — to raise their own capex plans further, which would extend the tailwind for chip suppliers. (2) How rising memory prices ripple through the broader semiconductor supply chain, since Micron’s decline is likely just the first sign of costs working their way down into phones, PCs, and other downstream products. (3) Whether the Fed actually delivers a rate cut at the September 16-17 FOMC meeting, and what tone it sets for the pace of cuts after that — along with whether the rally can broaden out beyond tech.

If you want to dig deeper into individual earnings, check out this week’s Weekly Stock Picks on Advantest and Target. I also track my own portfolio and net worth over time — you can see the full record on my asset tracker page (Japanese).

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* This article is for informational purposes only and does not recommend any specific investment. Please make investment decisions at your own responsibility.

Let’s keep at it, slow and steady. See you next time!

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