What’s News in Markets: Chip Stocks Clobbered, Retail Rotation, Moderna Makes History

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Imani Moise (0:32)

Hey listeners, it's Saturday, August 22nd. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. And this is What's News in Markets, our look at the biggest stock moves of the week and the news that drove them. Let's dive in. It was an unusually eventful late summer week for markets. Major stock indexes lost ground as oil prices surged and bond markets went a little bonkers. There were a lot of reasons for the sell-off. The US national debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time, and investors expect the government will need to keep borrowing heavily in the years ahead. And the war in Iran continued to push up energy prices, adding to concerns about inflation. All of that has left investors demanding a bigger return to lend their money long term. Bond yields held near their highest levels in over a decade, despite the efforts of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to contain borrowing costs. And those higher yields are having a ripple effect on the stock market. The NASDAQ fell 2% for the week, the S&P 500 lost 1.4%, and the Dow finished the week about 0.9% lower.

One of the biggest casualties of the bond market mayhem was one of the year's hottest trades, AI. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 5.5% as higher borrowing costs made investors question if the pace of AI-related spending was sustainable. Shares in NVIDIA, which had pledged to facilitate more than $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the US., fell more than 4.5% this week. Fellow chipmakers Micron and Sandisk also fell 0.5% and 2.7%, respectively. But the pain spread well beyond tech. Shares in power producer Talon Energy dropped 13%, while Caterpillar, which makes generators used to power data centers, fell more than 3%.

What connects all these companies is the massive amount of money pouring into AI infrastructure. Nine of the biggest tech companies have made roughly $3 trillion in off-balance sheet commitments mostly related to AI. And increasingly, tech companies are tapping the bond market to help finance the boom, creating even more competition for capital. Higher interest rates mean building data centers is getting more expensive. And stocks across the AI supply chain got punished for that this week.

Investors got a pulse check on the American consumer this week, as some of the country's biggest retailers reported earnings. And one thing became pretty clear. Shoppers are hunting for bargains.

Shares of Ross stores fell more than 4% on Friday after the discount chain reported higher customer traffic and raised its outlook for the year. Same store sales jumped 10% last quarter, as Ross attracted new customers across different ages and income levels. The company's stock finished the week 2.6% lower, but is up 27% so far this year. BJ's Wholesale Club also got a boost from bargain hunting shoppers. After the warehouse chain raised its profit outlook on Friday, shares rose more than 5.5% and closed up more than 3% for the week. BJ's membership hit a record of 8.5 million, and sales grew across every income level. Higher gas prices, on top of years of inflation, are still squeezing household budgets, forcing some lower-income shoppers to make choices between necessities, according to Walmart. That's something investors are watching closely, because consumer spending drives a substantial portion of the US economy, and any dip could weigh on corporate profits.

For now, shoppers are still spending. They're just getting choosier about where they spend. And some bigger purchases, like major home renovations, are getting put off altogether. To hear more about how that's playing out for home improvement retailers like Home Depot and Lowe's, check out the episode of What's News in Earnings that came out on Thursday.

And finally, there was one big bright spot in the week's turmoil—health care. Shares of Moderna surged 177% Wednesday, the biggest one-day gain for any S&P 500 stock in 25 years. The reason? A potential breakthrough in treating skin cancer.

Moderna and Merck say their experimental mRNA cancer vaccine succeeded in a late-stage trial of patients with high-risk melanoma, helping prevent the cancer from coming back or spreading. mRNA is the same technology that powered Moderna's COVID vaccine, but efforts to find its next big act after the pandemic have faced disappointing demand and setbacks.

This was the first successful late-stage trial of a personalized mRNA cancer therapy. Investors see the results as validation that the tech could have a future beyond COVID. The news also sent shares of Merck to a record high, and it lifted stocks of other biotech companies working on similar treatments. Healthcare was the best-performing sector in the S&P this week, rising more than 4%.