Tuesday Close Edition — August 11, 2026, 4:00 PM NYC
All figures are the 16:00:00 ET close. Instrument set matches the Tuesday premarket edition.
Alphabet Leads Dow Lower on Capex and Debt as Memory Bucks the Trend; Indexes Slip a Second Day Before CPI
Market Context: A second consecutive decline from last week's records — but a narrow one. The S&P 500 fell 0.32%, the Nasdaq 0.60% and the Dow 0.34%, while the Russell 2000 rose 0.32% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index gained 0.87%. The damage was concentrated in a handful of platform megacaps, not in technology broadly: Alphabet dropped 3.84%, its largest single-day fall in nearly six months, and led Dow decliners. Memory names went the other way. Elevated crude on incomplete Hormuz diplomacy kept inflation risk alive one day before July CPI.
Where the session finished, measured at the 4:00 PM NYC close.
Market Snapshot — 16:00:00 ET
| Asset | Prior Close (Mon 10 Aug) | Tuesday Close | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| S&P 500 (cash) | 7,753.11 | 7,728.20 | −24.91 (−0.32%) |
| Nasdaq Composite | 26,605.36 | 26,445.45 | −159.91 (−0.60%) |
| Nasdaq-100 | 29,621.80 | 29,525.48 | −96.32 (−0.33%) |
| Dow | 53,975.98 | 53,791.85 | −184.13 (−0.34%) |
| Russell 2000 | 3,017.40 | 3,027.12 | +9.72 (+0.32%) |
| PHLX Semiconductor | 11,993.86 | 12,098.47 | +104.61 (+0.87%) |
| VIX | 15.46 | 15.28 | −0.18 (−1.16%) |
10-yr T-Note ZN=F | 108.30 | 108.45 | +0.15 (+0.14%) |
10-yr yield ^TNX | 4.699% | 4.684% | −1.5bp |
WTI CL=F | 82.12 | 84.25 | +2.13 (+2.59%) |
Brent BZ=F | 87.68 | 89.98 | +2.30 (+2.62%) |
Gold GC=F | 4,477.00 | 4,461.80 | −15.20 (−0.34%) |
| Bitcoin | 64,074.72 | 63,762.02 | −312.70 (−0.49%) |
| DAX | 26,323.88 | 26,391.42 | +67.54 (+0.26%) |
| FTSE 100 | 10,862.50 | 10,844.20 | −18.30 (−0.17%) |
| Nikkei 225 | 66,970.22 | closed — Mountain Day | — |
| Hang Seng | 25,937.49 | 25,652.82 | −284.67 (−1.10%) |
| Shanghai Composite | 3,966.59 | 3,934.09 | −32.50 (−0.82%) |
| WIG20 | 4,024.05 — record | 4,048.66 — new record | +24.61 (+0.61%) |
| WIG | 152,704.05 | 153,436.38 | +732.33 (+0.48%) |
Commodity timing note. The crude and gold figures above are the 16:00:00 ET prints, consistent with the equity close. Official exchange settlements occur earlier and differ: ICE settled Brent at 88.91 (+1.36%) at 14:30 ET, and the front-month gold settle was 4,441.10. Both conventions are valid; mixing them produces apparent contradictions. TradingKey separately reported spot gold −0.45% and spot silver −1.6% — spot and futures are not interchangeable.
Asian sessions closed hours before the US close. Tokyo did not trade at all (Mountain Day); Hong Kong and Shanghai figures are their own 11 August session closes.
Ticker Board — 16:00:00 ET
| Ticker | Prior Close | Tuesday Close | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| RIOT | $19.40 | $20.24 | +$0.84 (+4.33%) |
| ASTS | $68.76 | $71.63 | +$2.87 (+4.17%) |
| CRWV | $88.19 | $90.32 | +$2.13 (+2.42%) |
| AMD | $469.56 | $474.32 | +$4.76 (+1.01%) |
| MU | $861.00 | $868.52 | +$7.52 (+0.87%) |
| META | $594.92 | $599.12 | +$4.20 (+0.71%) |
| TSLA | $330.88 | $332.81 | +$1.93 (+0.58%) |
| SMCI | $31.46 | $31.60 | +$0.14 (+0.45%) |
| INTC | $97.52 | $97.71 | +$0.19 (+0.19%) |
| NVDA | $217.55 | $217.50 | −$0.05 (−0.02%) |
| RKLB | $80.04 | $80.01 | −$0.03 (−0.04%) |
| PLTR | $175.23 | $174.94 | −$0.29 (−0.17%) |
| MSFT | $506.06 | $503.81 | −$2.25 (−0.44%) |
| AAPL | $308.26 | $304.91 | −$3.35 (−1.09%) |
| AVGO | $422.40 | $416.08 | −$6.32 (−1.50%) |
| AMZN | $278.09 | $272.27 | −$5.82 (−2.09%) |
| GOOGL | $357.52 | $343.80 | −$13.72 (−3.84%) |
| SPCX | $138.74 | $133.29 | −$5.45 (−3.93%) |
*GOOG (Class C) closed $343.00, −3.61%. Memory names outside the board: SK Hynix +4.70%, SanDisk +2.68%, Seagate +2.44%.*
Every one of the four pre-market gainers held its gain into the close. Every platform megacap that was soft at 8:00 finished softer.
The Session's Actual Divide
The convenient framing — "tech digestion" — does not survive the board. Technology as a sector was flat: XLK −0.12%, and the SOX rose 0.87%.
Alphabet fell 3.84% on the cost of its own buildout. The company raised 2026 capex guidance to $195–205B, with quarterly capex doubling year-over-year to $44.9B and free cash flow turning negative for the first time. On 10 August it closed a $25B senior notes offering with maturities out to 2066. Add federal appellate filings seeking to overturn the search-monopoly remedies — threatening distribution payments to Apple and Mozilla — a competition complaint from nearly 300 French publishers over AI Overviews, and the departure of 27-year chief scientist Jeff Dean.
That reframes the day. This was not "chips versus software." It was the market repricing who carries AI capex on their own balance sheet. Alphabet funds it with debt and negative FCF and was punished. Amazon (−2.09%) and Microsoft (−0.44%) sit in the same category. The companies that receive that spending were bid: SK Hynix +4.70%, SanDisk +2.68%, Seagate +2.44%, CoreWeave +2.42%, Micron +0.87%.
Meta was the exception among platforms at +0.71%. Broadcom was the exception among chips at −1.50%.
SpaceX fell 3.93% to $133.29, back below the $135 IPO price it reclaimed only on Monday. Lock-up expiries continue to work through the float.
Sectors
| Sector ETF | Close | Change |
|---|---|---|
| XLE Energy | $60.93 | +1.25% |
| XLU Utilities | $43.63 | +1.16% |
| XLI Industrials | $185.70 | +0.60% |
| XLB Materials | $53.24 | +0.11% |
| XLF Financials | $57.80 | −0.02% |
| XLK Technology | $186.09 | −0.12% |
| XLV Healthcare | $168.01 | −0.26% |
| XLP Staples | $84.69 | −0.31% |
| XLY Discretionary | $119.24 | −0.36% |
| XLC Comm. Services | $111.27 | −0.50% |
| XLRE Real Estate | $44.08 | −0.72% |
Energy and utilities led; real estate was worst, confirmed independently by VNQ and IYR (both −0.75%). Communication services at −0.50% is largely one stock — Alphabet is its dominant weight.
Home Depot was the Dow's best performer, +1.05%, ahead of Chevron (+0.90%) and IBM (+0.89%). Alphabet, at −3.84%, was the worst.
Geopolitics & Macro
United States. Trump rejected Iran's reparations framing and demanded compensation of his own; Tehran reiterated that Hormuz will not fully reopen without a blockade lift, withdrawal of forces and a permanent end to the war. CENTCOM reported 55 commercial vessels redirected from Iranian ports as of Sunday, up from 35 on 2 August, with two ships disabled and two boarded. Kpler recorded confirmed strait crossings falling from 15 on Friday to 11 on Saturday and six on Sunday. Iran and Oman are drafting a navigation agreement, but Tehran calls it insufficient on its own.
July payrolls fell 23,000 and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2% — for the wrong reason: the labour force shrank by 264,000 and participation dropped to 61.4%, the lowest in over five years. Household employment fell 87,000; May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000. July CPI is due Wednesday 8:30 AM ET, PPI Thursday.
United Kingdom. The Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% on 30 July in a 6–3 vote, its fifth hold this year.
Poland. WIG20 closed at 4,048.66, a second consecutive record; WIG at 153,436.38. Banks benefit from elevated rates; Orlen tracks the crude complex.
Outlook
Indexes fell for a second day, but the Russell 2000 and the SOX both closed higher — this was not broad risk-off. The signal is dispersion along a single axis: who pays for the AI buildout, and how. Balance-sheet funders were sold; recipients of the spending were bought. The 10-year eased to 4.684% even as crude rose, which reads closer to a growth scare than an inflation scare. Everything now turns on the CPI print, a workable Hormuz path, and absorption of successive SpaceX unlocks.
Information Sources
Primary price feed. All index, ticker, commodity and sector figures are 16:00:00 ET closes pulled from Yahoo Finance daily and one-minute bars in a single pass — one venue, one timestamp.
Cross-verification. Ticker-level closes were checked against The Motley Fool ("Data as of Aug 11, 2026"), which agreed to the cent on every overlapping name: MSFT $503.81 · TSLA $332.81 · GOOGL $343.80 · NVDA $217.50 · AAPL $304.91 · META $599.12 · AMZN $272.27 · SPCX $133.29, and on the index line S&P 7,728.20 / DJI 53,791.85 / Nasdaq 26,445.45. Memory-sector moves were confirmed against TradingKey's close report, matching on SKHY, SNDK, STX and MU.
Barchart caveat. Barchart's Nasdaq-100 page was headed "Tue, Aug 11th, 2026" while displaying $IUXX at 29,621.80 (−100.50) — that is Monday's close. Barchart's index pages run a day behind, and its inline ticker rails serve delayed intraday snapshots rather than settles. Reconciling against either produces phantom discrepancies.
Macro and corporate. Payrolls and participation: BLS Employment Situation, July 2026, with labour-force detail from CNBC. FOMC: Federal Reserve. Bank Rate: Bank of England. Alphabet capex, notes offering, antitrust filings and the Dean departure: TradingKey. Intel offering terms: CNBC. Hormuz vessel and crossing counts: CNBC, 10 August. Tokyo holiday: TradingHours.
*Not investment advice.*
