Market Snapshot

River1 Asset Management
August 19, 2025

Morning Note

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Calendar

This Week – Retail earnings to start, with all eyes on Powell to finish the week.

Tuesday – Housing Starts, HD Earnings

Wednesday – FOMC Minutes, TGT, LOW, TJX earnings

Thursday – Jobless Claims, WMT, ROST, WDAY earnings

Friday – Powell speaks at 10am Est.

Trading Observations

Very light volume yday as we await Powell Friday with FOMC minutes Tues
Options hangover now worked of
Housing in focus with HD earnings (how much impact tariffs having?), housing starts pre-mkt, and TOL earnings post close (new homes at an inflection point?) https://tinyurl.com/3yw26p6c [tinyurl.com]
Though lumber prices collapsing https://tinyurl.com/mtz6wnst [tinyurl.com]
Semis: Softbank joining the govt investing in INTC giving a boost
Broadly still 6500 resistance vs. 6400 support
NASI at RSIs that usually provide a tailwind https://tinyurl.com/bdhxwkjz [tinyurl.com]
Though oscillators short-term mildly overbought
Fwiw, money market fund yields high https://tinyurl.com/ymw87rsx [tinyurl.com]
And still on the rise https://tinyurl.com/4nmn3tjn [tinyurl.com]
China worth a look anyway, Shanghai flirting with 10-yr breakout https://tinyurl.com/4spbw7bv [tinyurl.com]
And KWEB https://tinyurl.com/tvxebm94 [tinyurl.com]
Will healthcare ever catch a bid? https://tinyurl.com/3mwymb5z [tinyurl.com]

Futures

DOW +99

S&P -6

Nasdaq -56

Charts/Sentiment

CNN Fear/Greed Index

U.S. 10 Year Treasury

VIX

Bitcoin

Financials / Consumer / Healthcare

SOFI - SoFi to add a blockchain-powered international money transfer service to its app.

LLY, NVO - Viking Therapeutics shares (VKTX) sink 33% after the biotech’s oral weight loss drug, VK2735, missed Wall Street’s estimates.

IOVA climb 14% in premarket trading after the biotech company said Health Canada approved Amtagvi to treat certain patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

HD are UP 1.3% after the home-improvement retailer reported second-quarter comparable sales that several analysts’ are saying were generally in-line with expectations.

WULF are down 2.1%, paring some earlier declines, after Cantor Fitzgerald raised its price target on the Bitcoin miner and data center operator to $14 from $11 after Google took a 14% stake in the company as part of a deal with Fluidstack.

LULU - Lululemon Athletica Inc. founder Chip Wilson pledged shares in return for cash for the third time in just over a year, freeing the billionaire to spend on other matters and maintain his voting influence over the yogawear-maker he founded nearly three decades ago.

Technology

Look for software to catch a bid today as the sector has really underperformed vs the SMH (chips). PANW solid earnings could fuel a bid to start the day.

PANW - jumped on a stronger-than-expected annual forecast, as the company seeks to provide customers with a bundle of AI-enabled cybersecurity products to fend off attacks.

Fiscal-year sales will be about $10.5 billion.

Nvidia (NVDA) +0.2%, Tesla (TSLA) +0.2%, Microsoft (MSFT) -0.1%, Apple (AAPL) -0.2%, Amazon (AMZN) -0.2%, Meta Platforms (META) -0.2%, Alphabet (GOOGL) -0.3%

AAPL market share reportedly slipped in favor of Samsung.

FN are down 11% in premarket trading, after the optical device maker said it expects to see a sequential dip in datacom segment revenue in its fiscal 1Q, citing supply constraints for some critical components.

INTC is up 5.8% after SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to buy $2 billion of the chipmaker’s stock.

Industrials

AVAV - shares gain as much as 3.4% in premarket trading Tuesday after Needham & Co initiated coverage of the stock with a recommendation of buy

Caterpillar (CAT) upgraded to outperform from in line at Evercore ISI; $476 PT

Ralliant Corp. (RAL) initiated sector perform at RBC Capital Markets; $47 PT

Vertiv Holdings (VRT) initiated sell at GLJ Research; $112 PT