Semis split: Applied Materials' record quarter, down 5.1%

Friday’s close left the semiconductor complex pointing in two directions at once: Applied Materials fell 5.12% on a record quarter, while AMD rose 6.50% on a debt deal and a bigger AI market forecast. The US data calendar is empty today and restarts Tuesday morning.

The same tape, opposite directions in semis

Applied Materials closed Friday at $507.18, down 5.12%, after reporting fiscal Q3 revenue of $9.115 billion (+25% y/y), non-GAAP EPS of $3.50 (+41%) and a 50.3% GAAP gross margin — revenue ahead of consensus, with CEO Gary Dickerson raising the calendar-2026 Semiconductor Systems outlook and pointing to another strong growth year in 2027. The attributed reason for the fall is expectations rather than fundamentals: the print landed after a substantial year-to-date rally. AMD went the other way, +6.50% to $514.39, after pricing a $4.75 billion bond offering to fund AI and data-centre expansion — its largest-ever US dollar debt deal — and raising its estimate of the total AI chip market to $1.4 trillion by 2030 at its Advancing AI event. Micron (+2.30%) and Texas Instruments (+2.25%) leaned with AMD; Broadcom (−5.94%) leaned with Applied, with explanations split between broad de-risking after the S&P 500’s record high and confirmation that a VMware vCenter flaw, CVE-2026-59310, disclosed July 29, is being actively exploited.

Reddit’s index add is mechanical, and today is the last session before it

Reddit closed +12.63% at $178.09 after S&P Dow Jones Indices said late Thursday it will enter the S&P 500 before Tuesday’s open, replacing AvalonBay Communities. Inclusion typically pulls buying from passive funds and index trackers, so the move is flow, not a re-rating — today’s session is the last one pre-inclusion. The fundamentals are not weak: Q2 results on July 30 showed revenue up 61%. But the stock is still down 24% year to date, which is a different story from the AI-advertising-winner framing attached to the pop.

Breadth was negative under the record-high headlines

Large-cap breadth finished 40 advancing to 60 declining. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq still logged a third straight weekly gain even as tech pulled back and the indexes slipped on the day, with roughly 90% of S&P 500 companies reported as of August 13 and the quarter described as unusually strong. The heaviest selling clustered in high-multiple software and crypto-adjacent names — Cloudflare −4.55%, Robinhood −3.83%, CrowdStrike −3.80%, Oracle −3.65%, Coinbase −3.53%, Palo Alto −2.96%, Palantir −2.78% — a cohort move consistent with the tech pullback; no name-specific catalyst has emerged. One housekeeping point on Palo Alto: previews circulating that it reports after today’s close are wrong. The company’s own investor relations page has fiscal Q4 and full-year 2026 results on Tuesday, September 1.

Energy leads, and the rate story has two sides

The energy ETF XLE rose 1.39%, the firmest corner of the tape, with the driver geopolitical and unresolved: traders across Asia are waiting on progress toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17 to open the strait to commerce, but Iran’s foreign ministry says Washington must lift its naval blockade first, with Iran and Oman in bilateral talks. Rates are genuinely two-sided right now: softer producer prices trimmed bets that the Fed would need to raise rates, while a week earlier the framing was expectations of lower borrowing costs after soft jobs data. In Asia, South Korea was closed for a holiday, Hang Seng futures rose 0.6%, Japan finished around flat with softer-than-expected domestic GDP cited, and India opened lower — the Sensex down 116.33 points, or 0.14%, at 77,892.92.

Two things worth knowing away from the index names

Eton Pharmaceuticals closed +43.71% at $58.52 on 2.31 million shares after Q2 revenue nearly doubled year over year to $37.6 million against $26.88 million consensus, with 2026 revenue guided above $145 million and adjusted EBITDA margin targeted above 35%. Reported EPS beat consensus, though the specific figure differs between data providers. Separately, Bloomberg reported Friday that Anthropic told prospective investors its preliminary Q2 revenue topped $11.5 billion, against $787 million a year earlier and $4.73 billion in Q1 2026 — preliminary, unaudited private-company figures shown to investors ahead of a potential IPO, not a filing.

What to watch today

Reddit joins the S&P 500 before Tuesday’s open, replacing AvalonBay Communities — today is the last pre-inclusion session
No US economic releases scheduled today; Housing Starts Tuesday 8:30 am ET (prev 1,427K)
Industrial Production Tuesday 9:15 am ET; Retail Sales Thursday 8:30 am ET
Earnings today are led by non-US issuers including BHP, Woodside and KB Financial
Palo Alto Networks fiscal Q4 and FY26 results are set for Tuesday, September 1, per company IR
Any development on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the live variable behind energy

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.