S&P 500 Eases Off Its Record as the Consumer Finally Blinks

9 hours ago 1

Anders Bylund, The Motley Fool

Fri, August 14, 2026 astatine 12:14 PM CDT 4 min read

The American user has been carrying this system for months. Friday greeting brought 2 reports suggesting the load is getting heavy. Stocks responded with a slow, unglamorous slide.

The Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX: ^IXIC) is down 0.44% arsenic of 12:00 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) has slipped 0.21%, and the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is disconnected 0.19%. All 3 hovered astir the flatline for the archetypal fractional hour, turned antagonistic soon aft 10 a.m. ET, and crushed steadily little until astir 11:30. The Nasdaq broke distant from the different 2 mid-morning and fell astir doubly arsenic far.

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Weak user information pushes marketplace indexes little

Retail income dropped 0.6% successful July, showing the archetypal diminution successful 9 months and the biggest successful 14. Economists had forecast a 0.1% gain. Core retail sales, which astir intimately correspond to the user spending constituent of GDP, dropped 0.4% versus expectations of a 0.3% increase.

Some of that is simply a technicality. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) moved Prime Day to June this year, which pulled income retired of July and knocked nonstore retailers down 2.2%. Many e-tailers followed Amazon's shift, keeping their ain discount events adjacent to the e-commerce titan's calendar. The little comfy mentation is that this spring's generous taxation refunds were already spent.

A idiosyncratic   rests a manus  connected  their caput  portion    holding a recognition  paper  astatine  a laptop, with a java  cupful  nearby.

Image source: Getty Images.

The University of Michigan's preliminary user sentiment scale for August came successful astatine 51.0, good beneath the 54.5 statement and down from 55.2 successful July. One-year ostentation expectations ticked up to 4.3%. Weak assurance paired with persistent ostentation expectations is an uncomfortable operation for the Federal Reserve.

Chip stocks did astir of the harm to the scale today. Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) fell 5.6% and gave up astir $105 cardinal successful marketplace value, the azygous largest resistance connected some the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. Yesterday, Broadcom was up connected the representation spot story; today, it's the biggest weight. Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) dropped 4% contempt guiding gross supra expectations, a acquainted signifier this week.

On the Dow, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) slipped 0.7% for astir 43 points and Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) fell 1.3% for different 33. It was a quiescent time crossed the Dow, not conscionable among its heavyweights. I don't spot a azygous determination of 2.5% oregon much connected the Dow today.

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