Cooling off after Friday’s big run

Briefing.com Summary:

*Equity futures dip on profit-taking after Friday’s strong rally, especially in mega-cap stocks.

*Intel confirmed U.S. government will take a 9.9% stake in the company.

*NVIDIA earnings Wednesday expected to dominate market attention.

With the Russell 2000 up 3.9% on Friday in the wake of Fed Chair Powell’s Jackson Hole speech, it was unmistakable that the market liked what it heard. Specifically, it liked hearing Fed Chair Powell open the door to a rate cut in September with the acknowledgment that the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting the Fed’s policy stance.

That wasn’t a guarantee of a rate cut, but it was about as close as the market could have hoped for leading up to the speech, so it took the news and ran with it. The end result was a record high for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and another painful episode for short sellers.

There is a little less pain this morning for that beleaguered bunch. The S&P 500 futures are down 18 points and are trading 0.3% below fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are down 88 points and are trading 0.4% below fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 138 points and are trading 0.3% below fair value.

The primary basis for the pre-open weakness, arguably, is the scope of Friday’s gains, which have given way to some profit-taking interest. That has extended into the mega-cap space, which is the biggest influence on the equity futures trade.

Several companies with a heavy reliance on furniture imports are under some added pressure following President Trump’s announcement in a Truth Social post that his administration will be undertaking a major investigation of furniture imports. That investigation, he said, will be completed within 50 days, and that imported furniture will face a tariff rate that has yet to be determined.

This is the news that is accounting for the underperformance of names like RH (RH), Williams-Sonoma (WSM), Wayfair (W), and Arhaus (ARHS).

The Trump administration has also stopped construction on a $4 billion wind farm, according to The New York Times, and it was officially announced by Intel (INTC) that the government will take a 9.9% stake in the company. NEC Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC in an interview this morning that it is possible the government will take stakes in other companies, too.

Separately, Keurig Dr. Pepper (KDP) is taking a 100% stake in JDE Peet’s by way of an approximately $18 billion cash acquisition of the coffee and tea company. When the acquisition is complete, KDP plans to separate into two independent, U.S.-listed publicly traded companies.

There is one, U.S.-listed publicly traded company that is going to command most of the market’s attention this week. That would be NVIDIA (NVDA), which is scheduled to report its quarterly results after the close on Wednesday. NVIDIA is trading modestly lower in pre-market action. 

Today’s lone piece of economic data is the July New Home Sales Report (Briefing.com consensus: 630,000; prior 627,000), which will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET.

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Originally Posted August 25, 2025 – Cooling off after Friday’s big run