How the day closed: indexes, leaders, laggards, and volatility.
Read the transcript
This is the CAMS Closing Market Recap for Wednesday, August fifth.
The tape closed split today, and the split ran along market cap lines rather than one clean direction. The Dow finished higher by about four tenths of a percent. The S&P 500 slipped roughly two tenths, the Nasdaq 100 gave back about nine tenths, and the Russell 2000 small caps fell about six tenths.
Breadth inside the Dow tells the story better than the headline numbers. Twenty-one of the thirty names finished green against nine decliners, so the average blue chip had a good afternoon. Amgen led with a gain of more than four and a half percent, Disney added about three and a half, and Nvidia rose about three and a half as well. On the other side, Dow Inc. and Chevron each shed about two percent, and Microsoft closed down roughly one percent.
Sector leadership was a mix of defense and hard assets. Health Care led, up about one and a quarter percent, with Materials right alongside it, and Consumer Discretionary a distant third at three tenths. Energy was the clear laggard, off about two percent, with Communications and Utilities each down about one percent. Five sectors closed higher, six closed lower.
Volatility drifted lower even with the averages red. The VIX settled near fifteen point eight, down about four percent on the day, not the behavior of a market bracing for something.
The plain version of the day: the average stock did fine, and the biggest index weights did not.
Tomorrow brings weekly unemployment claims at eight thirty Eastern, the warm-up for Friday's monthly payrolls, average hourly earnings, and unemployment rate. The desk will be watching whether the broad participation on display in the Dow today survives the labor data, or narrows back toward the largest names.
CAMS publishes impersonal market research — nothing here is individualized investment advice. The full written research is at curve ahead market strategies dot com.
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