Semis Carried Wednesday; Cisco's Print Lands Before the Bell

Wednesday’s session looked strong at the top and was anything but broad underneath — 49 of 100 large caps advanced, 51 fell, with AI hardware bid and software and consumer names sold. The most consequential number so far is one the tape has not reacted to yet: Cisco’s fiscal Q4, reported after Wednesday’s close.

A semis session dressed up as a rally

Breadth was a coin flip — 49 advancing, 51 declining across 100 large caps — despite the size of the top gains. Up: MU +4.92% ($911.29), AMAT +4.29%, NVDA +3.03%, AMD +1.82%, INTC +3.32% on 161.6M shares, far the heaviest print in either list. Down: MSFT −2.26%, META −3.38%, PLTR −2.23%, DDOG −2.38%, and the consumer/fintech side — UBER −4.05%, HD −3.12%, ABNB −2.64%, AFRM −4.31%. Reuters tied the session to CoreWeave’s results fuelling AI optimism; the split was thematic, not random.

Cisco’s numbers are out; the reaction is not

CSCO closed +2.86% at $123.88 — that move predates the earnings. Cisco reported fiscal Q4 after Wednesday’s close: revenue $17.3B, up 18% year over year, against consensus of $16.82B and $1.17 EPS. GAAP operating margin was 24.7%, non-GAAP 35.9%, and Q4 total product orders rose 35% y/y, or 25% excluding hyperscalers, with the company invoking a “networking supercycle.” How the tape handles that beat is the first thing to check at the open.

Oracle rose on someone else’s news; Wendy’s on a report

ORCL +5.36% to $153.28 came from neocloud read-through rather than Oracle news — CoreWeave’s disclosed pipeline going from roughly $25B to over $104B in a year, and Nebius posting a 454% revenue increase. Sitting awkwardly inside that bullish week: UBS cut its Oracle price target to $245 from $285 on Aug 3. WEN +14.78% followed an FT report that Nelson Peltz’s Trian, the largest holder at about 16%, is preparing a bid to take Wendy’s private and lining up other shareholders — no bid, price or consortium has been confirmed by the company. CAVA +14.38% is verified: revenue $365.4M versus $360.1M consensus, up 31.3% from $278.2M, adjusted EPS $0.19 in line.

Meta’s legal day, and a rate story that doesn’t add up

META −3.38% as a US trial opened in which 29 states accuse the company of improperly collecting children’s data, four of them also challenging allegedly addictive design, alongside a German group’s criminal complaint over its smart glasses. Worth noting: coverage during the session described shares off roughly 1.6% in morning trading, so the selling accelerated into the afternoon. HD −3.12% was not earnings — Home Depot reports Aug 18 before the open, and the slip followed CEO Ted Decker taking medical leave. Meanwhile the headline narrative is contradicting itself: Bloomberg framed Asia’s gain on “benign” US inflation while Yahoo Finance had indices higher on rate-hike bets. Both cannot be right.

Overnight: Korea did the heavy lifting

Asian shares were mostly higher on AI and chip strength. The Kospi rose 4% to 6,844.65, with Samsung Electronics +5.4% and SK Hynix +7.1% — the market context behind both the Korea bull-market story and Seoul’s move to route new investors into classes after a single-stock trading frenzy. Japan traded higher intraday, and China and Hong Kong were modestly higher. Europe was headlined as poised for a steady open; for context, the EURO STOXX 50 closed at an all-time high above 6,560 on Aug 11, up roughly 13% year to date, with the DAX above 26,450 for the first time.

What to watch today

PPI at 8:30 AM ET — previous reading 286.827
FOMC statement scheduled for 2:00 PM ET
Cisco’s first full session after fiscal Q4: revenue $17.3B, +18% y/y, product orders +35%
Any company confirmation or denial from Wendy’s on the reported Trian take-private approach
Retail Sales Friday at 8:30 AM ET, previous 768,553
Home Depot reports Aug 18 before the open

Not financial advice. iTrading Buddy summarizes publicly available market data and news; every figure above is sourced from the reporting available before the US open on the date shown. Verify anything you act on.