Stock Market Live August 19: S&P 500 (VOO) Rally Still on Hold Pending Fed Talk
Key Points
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All’s quiet on Wall Street today, with the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF down less than 0.1% as investors await Fed interest rate clues.
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Home Depot missed on earnings today, but Palo Alto Networks and Medtronic both beat.
Live Updates
Tuesday Wrap-up
The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF closed at 588.15 Tuesday, down 0.5%.
Softbank Rides to Intel's Rescue
“Great minds think alike,” goes the old saying, and today, one of Wall Street’s best and brightest just confirmed a hunch I had on why Intel (Nasdaq: INTC | INTC Price Prediction) stock dropped yesterday instead of popping.
According to investment banker Bernstein, Intel was supposed to get $10.9 billion in CHIPS Act funding for free. But yesterday’s Bloomberg report that the government actually wants to take a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for its $10.9 billion “seems worse” for Intel. No kidding!
Bernstein is maintaining its $21 price target and market perform rating on Intel stock for now, but it’s hard to shake the feeling Intel is getting a rawer deal than it bargained for. On the plus side, though, Intel announced today it’s getting a $2 billion investment from Softbank. Granted, this is also in exchange for an equity stake, but at least this is $2 billion in new money.
Intel stock is up 7.5% on the news.
Viking De-horned
Viking Therapeutics (Nasdaq: VKTX) stock tumbled more than 42% in morning trading after announcing results of a 13-week clinical trial of its new GLP-1 weight loss pill VK2735. Patients in the study lost an average of 12.2% of body weight over the course of the trial — but 20% of participants dropped out complaining of side effects.
Rival GLP-1 pill developers Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) and Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) are seeing their stocks rise on the news, up 1.7% and 2.2%, respectively.
The Voo is now down again — 0.1%.
XPeng Motors Higher
In further earnings news, XPeng Inc. (NYSE: XPEV) “beat” earnings, but only by reporting fewer losses than expected. The Chinese electric car company reported a Q2 loss per share of RMB0.20 instead of the expected RMB0.83 loss.
Revenue, however, fell short of expectations, and guidance for Q3 was weak. XPeng stock is nonetheless up about 0.7%. The Voo is back in positive territory, too, up 0.1%.
This article will be updated throughout the day, so check back often for more daily updates.
It’s a pretty slow news day on Wall Street so far, with most professional investors waiting to hear what Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will have to say later this week at the Fed’s annual economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Of especial interest will be any hints Powell decides to drop about his intention to lower interest rates in September — and beyond.
The fed funds futures market forecasts (say that five times quick) an 83% chance of the Fed reducing interest rates by 0.25% in September, but with wholesale inflation ticking up, that percentage chance has been falling of late.
Premarket, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) is trading down about 0.1%.
Earnings
Earnings season is all but over, yet a handful of big S&P 500 companies are still straggling in.
Last night, Palo Alto Networks (Nasdaq: PANW) reported $0.95 per share in profit for its fiscal Q4 2025, which was six cents better than expected. Revenue nailed the analyst forecast for $2.5 billion, and guidance was good for fiscal Q1 2026, with both earnings ($3.75 to $3.85) and revenue ($2.45 billion-plus) ahead of Wall Street estimates.
Palo Alto stock is up more than 6% in the premarket on this news.
Conversely, this morning we heard from Home Depot (NYSE: HD), and the news there wasn’t so good. Home Depot earned $4.68 per share in Q2 2025, missing Wall Street’s forecast by four cents. Revenue of $45.3 billion likewise fell short of expectations.
On the plus side, Home Depot reaffirmed guidance through the end of this year. Same store sales should still be up 1% year over year, and total sales growth just shy of 3%. Earnings per share, however, might be as low as $14.46, down 3% from 2024.
Finally, med-tech company Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) reported a three-cent earnings beat for its own fiscal Q1 2026 — $1.26 per share. Revenue also beat expectations at $8.6 billion, and guidance for the rest of its fiscal 2026 was strong.
Despite the divergent results, Home Depot stock is up more than 2% this morning, while Medtronic shares are down more than 4%.
Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.
He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.
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