Weekend Wrap: Tech shed 3.68% while Healthcare led the charge

📊 Weekly Market Scoreboard

Week ending August 21, 2026

🏢 Sector Heatmap

🔎 The Week That Was

Friday's close left a mixed picture heading into the weekend. The major indexes all finished in the red — the S&P 500 dropped 0.91% to 7,674.37, the Nasdaq fell 1.74% to 26,180.46, and the Russell 2000 slid 1.30% to 3,017.87 — but the pain wasn't evenly distributed. Under the surface, a pretty significant rotation was playing out.

The story of the week was the tug-of-war between growth and defensives. Technology was the week's worst-performing sector, off 3.68%, while Healthcare surged 4.53% to lead all sectors. Materials (+2.49%) and Energy (+1.69%) also had strong showings. That's the kind of sector rotation that usually signals investors are quietly de-risking — rotating out of high-multiple growth names and into things that hold up better when the macro gets choppy.

The headline that helps explain some of the anxiety: a Treasury yield sell-off rattled markets earlier in the week, though the Dow did manage a 500-point rebound as buyers stepped back in. When bond yields spike, the math on expensive tech stocks gets uglier fast — higher discount rates compress valuations, and traders know it.

Heading into Monday, the dominant question isn't what happened last week — it's what happens Wednesday, when Nvidia, Salesforce, and CrowdStrike all report earnings in the same session. That triple-header has the potential to either stabilize the tech selloff or accelerate it. Position accordingly.

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🟢 Top 5 Winners

🔴 Top 5 Losers

📈 What Drove the Moves

Coinbase was the runaway winner of the week, jumping 23.87% to $186.49. Crypto markets don't close on weekends, and Bitcoin's continued strength gave COIN a sustained tailwind all week. When risk appetite shows up in digital assets, Coinbase benefits disproportionately — higher trading volumes translate almost directly to revenue. Rivian (+14.12% to $16.97) also had a strong week, helped by the broader Unifor-GM tentative deal news, which may have given EV investors a reason to believe labor headwinds across the auto sector are easing. Salesforce popped 9.53% to $209.17 and Atlassian gained 8.51% to $171.81, both likely getting a pre-earnings lift from investors betting on solid enterprise software demand. Tesla added 6.94% to $362.86, bucking the broader tech weakness.

On the other side of the ledger, Intel had a rough week — down 12.97% to $90.07 — as the chip sector broadly struggled and Intel continues to face skepticism about its foundry ambitions and competitive positioning against AMD and TSMC. Speaking of AMD, it dropped 6.47% to $473.25, and Broadcom fell 6.11% to $368.45, both caught in the same tech-sector downdraft. CrowdStrike's 10.26% drop to $191.95 is notable given the company reports earnings Wednesday — the market may be bracing for guidance disappointment. And Walmart's 9.08% decline to $103.70 was a genuine surprise for a stock typically seen as a safe haven — no single obvious catalyst, but a 9% move in Walmart is not something you see every week.

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📅 Earnings: Week Ahead

🔭 What to Watch This Week

Wednesday, August 26 is shaping up to be one of the most consequential single days of the earnings season. Nvidia reports with a consensus estimate of $2.01 per share, and at this point the bar isn't just the number — it's the tone. Investors want to hear that hyperscaler AI spending hasn't plateaued, that data center demand is still accelerating, and that whatever supply constraints exist are being resolved. Given that Technology is the week's worst-performing sector and Nvidia is the gravitational center of the AI trade, a miss or cautious outlook could extend the selloff in a meaningful way.

Salesforce also reports Wednesday with estimates at $2.35 per share — and unlike Nvidia, the stock already had a good week, up 9.53%. That pre-earnings run creates a higher bar. Investors will be watching closely for any commentary on AI-driven product adoption, particularly around Agentforce, the company's autonomous AI platform. A beat plus strong guidance could validate the run-up. A miss would be an ugly give-back. CrowdStrike reports the same day at a $0.05 estimate, and after a 10.26% drop this week, the stock is already pricing in some nervousness — whether that's justified or an overreaction is exactly what Wednesday's print will answer.

Marvell rounds out the week on August 27 with a $0.65 estimate. It's a quieter report than the others, but Marvell has become a key read-through for custom silicon and AI networking demand. If Nvidia's report Wednesday sets the tone for AI infrastructure, Marvell will either confirm or complicate that story a day later. This is a week where earnings aren't just about individual stocks — they're about the entire narrative around AI spending that has driven markets for the past two years.

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