Bulls vs Bears — MPC Markets — 22 August 2026

WEEKEND EDITION
22 August 2026 | Vol. 2026 No. 34
mpcmarkets.com.au
MPC Markets

Bulls & Bears

Weekly Market Intelligence
Week ending
22 August 2026
Week 34 · FY2027 · H1

S&P 500
7,690
−1.4% Wk
Nasdaq
26,380
−1.6% Wk
Dow
53,410
−0.8% Wk
Gold
$4,520
+3.9% Wk
WTI Crude
$88.10
Brent $94
Bitcoin
$72,900
+15.3% 5d
AUD/USD
0.6710
−1.0%
10Y UST
4.72%
+7 bps

Week in Review
Bonds Bite Back, Consumer Cracks, Crypto Wakes Up

This was the week the bond market finally got noticed. Not by us. We’ve been banging on about yields for months. But the stock market, which had been cheerfully ignoring thirty-year Treasuries screaming past 5%, suddenly decided to pay attention. Three or four consecutive days of selling. Every major US index finished lower on the week.

The trigger was the Iran truce expiry on Monday. That six-day MOU was always a piece of paper and nothing else, and when Trump refused to extend it, oil surged again. Brent pushed above $94, its fifth straight day of gains, up 7% for the week. Trump declared the Strait of Hormuz a US territory, which tells you roughly where the diplomatic effort is at. He also threatened Iran, Canada, Mexico, and Oman in the same week. Nobody reacted to any of it.

Then the consumer data landed. July retail sales dropped 0.6% month-on-month, the biggest decline in over a year. Michigan consumer sentiment fell to its lowest print in the 55-year history of the survey. And then Walmart, the bellwether of American spending, reported comparable sales of 2.6% versus 3.8% expected. Weakest in six years. The stock dropped nearly 10%. If Walmart’s customers are pulling back, everyone’s customers are pulling back.

But the real story was bonds. US national debt crossed $40 trillion this week. Took ninety-five days to add the last trillion. Federal debt interest payments are running at $1.4 trillion per annum, which is more than the entire defence budget. The 30-year auction cleared at 5.33%, the highest since June 2007. And just when the Besant Put was supposed to be calming markets (Treasury Secretary Besant intervened to buy back long-dated bonds), yields gave back every basis point of the improvement by Friday. Gilts approached 6%. German 30-years hit their highest since 2008. Japan hasn’t seen these levels since 1996.

In the middle of all this, gold cracked $4,500 before settling around $4,520 for the week, up nearly 4%. Bitcoin ripped 15% higher in five days, back above $72,000. When both gold and crypto rally at the same time, people are telling you something very clear about what they think of fiat currency.

Mon 18 Aug — Dow and S&P down small as Iran truce expired. Trump refused extension, threatened to bomb Oman. Oil surged. Hormuz tanker traffic barely a trickle.
Mon 18 Aug — US July retail sales −0.6% M/M (vs +0.1% exp), biggest drop in over a year. Michigan consumer sentiment fell to record low. Inflation expectations edged up.
Mon 18 Aug — September hold probability rose to 67% (was 56% a week ago). Fed’s Barkin said labour market is vulnerable and inflation may be drifting lower on its own.
Tue 19 Aug — S&P −0.5%, Nasdaq −0.3%. Ten of eleven S&P sectors lower. 30-year yields hit 5.31%, fresh cycle high. Iran truce dead.
Tue 19 Aug — ASX: JB Hi-Fi −10%, NAB −5%, BlueScope −2.2%. Consumer stocks broadly weak. Earnings season 85% beat rate but no one’s celebrating.
Tue 19 Aug — BHP lifted dividend 57% to US$1.72/share. Hub24 beat forecasts. CSL eyes 5% profit growth. Judo bounced hard off bad-news lows.
Wed 20 Aug — Nasdaq −1% led by SOX index. Micron −7%, Intel −5%, Meta −3% (children’s advertising class action). Caterpillar, Lamb Research −3–5%.
Wed 20 Aug — Healthcare rallied: Moderna +177% (then gave back 24% Thursday), Merck +13% to all-time highs, Eli Lilly up on digital twins drug discovery.
Wed 20 Aug — CSL rallied. ProMedicus hit $200 intraday ($40 range on the day). Judo closed at $1.15 after opening at $0.97. Google $5B kangaroo bond, $13B interest, 20Y >7%.
Thu 21 Aug — US debt crossed $40 trillion. Interest payments $1.4T/yr. Besant intervened buying back 30Y bonds. Gold miners +5–9%. Bitcoin +5.4%.
Thu 21 Aug — Walmart −10% on weakest comp sales in six years (2.6% vs 3.8% exp). Goodman down despite strong result. Oil WTI ~$88, Brent ~$94.
Thu 21 Aug — Stockland +12%. Tealix maiden profit. John Deere beat. Bitcoin +15.3% in five days. Hyperliquid +30% after Trump crypto comments.
Fri 22 Aug — Besant Put faded. 10Y and 30Y yields up 5–6 bps, giving back all intervention gains. S&P, Nasdaq, Dow, Russell all down for the week.

Global Markets
Index Performance — Week Ending 22 August

Index	Level	Week	Signal / Commentary
S&P 500	7,690	−1.4%	3–4 consecutive down days. Bond yields the catalyst. Lost ATH momentum.
Nasdaq Composite	26,380	−1.6%	SOX-led selloff. Chip stocks under pressure, healthcare & energy outperforming.
Dow Jones	53,410	−0.8%	Walmart −10% dragged index. John Deere & healthcare cushioned the blow.
Russell 2000	—	−0.9%	Down on the week despite rate hold bets increasing. Consumer weakness weighing.
ASX 200	~9,080	−0.8%	Earnings-driven. Banks weak, gold miners strong, Goodman disappointed.
Nikkei 225	—	−1.2%	Gave back some of last week’s gains. Yen still weak near 160.
Euro Stoxx 50	—	−0.6%	Bond yields weighing. France 30Y highest since 2008. Gilts near 6%.

Everything was red. First coordinated global sell-off in weeks. The bond market was the common thread: US, UK, Europe, Japan all hitting multi-year or multi-decade yield highs simultaneously. Euro and pound at their highest since mid-June and mid-May respectively, while the yen stayed pinned near intervention territory. Nikkei dipped but the ASX held up better than most, buoyed by gold miners and a couple of decent earnings results. The SOX index led tech lower in the US, and semiconductor stocks bore the brunt of the rotation into defensives and healthcare.

Macro & Bonds
The Besant Put Lasted About Three Days

Treasury Secretary Besant’s second market intervention in a month was supposed to calm long-end yields. He stepped in buying back thirty-year bonds, same playbook as the yen intervention in late July. The market called his bluff inside seventy-two hours. By Friday, yields had given back every basis point.

The problem is arithmetic. The US government hasn’t run a budget surplus since Clinton. Federal debt just blew past $40 trillion with a ninety-five day interval between the last two trillion-dollar milestones. Interest payments are running at $1.4 trillion annually. The Big Beautiful Bill added tax relief without offsetting revenue. Tariff income was supposed to plug the gap, then most of it got refunded. So really the only option left, and they’ll never say it publicly, is they are inflating their way out of this. Printing money, buying back bonds, and hoping nobody notices the purchasing power of the dollar is half what it was in 2013.

Every government in the world is doing the same thing. The USD just looks strong because everyone else is worse. September hold probability hit 67%, up from 56% a week ago. Barkin says the labour market is vulnerable. But the fiscal picture is what keeps us up at night.

Rates & FX Snapshot
Fed Funds5.25–5.50%
2Y UST4.18%
10Y UST4.72% ▲
30Y UST5.33% ▲
RBA Cash Rate4.35%
Retail Sales M/M−0.6%
Mich. Sentiment55-yr low
Sep Hold Odds~67% ▲
AUD/USD0.6710
UK Gilts 10YNear 6%

⚠ US national debt crossed $40 trillion. 95 days to add the last trillion. Federal interest payments now $1.4T/yr, exceeding the defence budget.

⚠ 30-year Treasury at 5.33%, highest since June 2007. Besant’s bond buyback intervention gains fully erased within 72 hours.

⚠ Global bond yields hitting multi-decade highs: UK gilts near 6%, France 30Y highest since 2008, Japan 30Y highest since 1996, Germany 10Y highest since January 2025.

✓ September hold probability rose to 67% (from 56%). Fed’s Barkin flagged vulnerable labour market. Consumer weakness doing the Fed’s job for it.

Commodities & Energy
Gold Cracks $4,500, Oil Grinds Higher, Bitcoin Rips
Gold Spot
$4,520
+3.9% Wk
Silver
—
+3–5% Wk
WTI Crude
$88.10
+8.5% Wk
Bitcoin
$72,900
+15.3% 5d

Gold punched through $4,500 mid-week before settling at $4,520 on the close. UBS’s $5,000 target is looking less outlandish by the week. The thesis is simple: governments are inflating their way out of debt, yield-controlling the long end, and the dollar’s purchasing power keeps eroding. Central bank buying continues. China keeps adding to reserves. When you’ve got a government that by its actions has flatly admitted it’s comfortable with inflation, gold is where you want to be.

Oil kept grinding higher on Hormuz. Brent hit $94, WTI pushed above $88, fifth straight day of gains at one point, up 7% for the week. The diesel crack spread broke above $100 for the first time in its history (previous high was $89 before the Iranian situation escalated). The truce expired, Trump’s threats fell flat, and tanker traffic through the strait remains barely a trickle.

Bitcoin woke up. A 15.3% move in five days, back above $72,000. Trump mentioned crypto, specifically Hyperliquid (MPC’s sole open crypto recommendation), which surged 30%. The store-of-value trade is on. When gold, silver, platinum, and Bitcoin are all rallying together while stocks sell off, people are voting with their feet on what they think about government-issued anything. Copper and lithium drifted but uranium started to perk up. Iron ore actually jumped 1%, which in the current range of nothingness counts as a big move.

Risk Dashboard
Complacency Gets a Wake-Up Call
VIX
~17.5
Up from 14.45
USD Index
~99.8
EUR & GBP at highs
USD/JPY
~160
Intervention watch
Diesel Crack
>$100
First time ever
Hormuz Traffic
Trickle
Truce expired Mon
US Debt
$40T
Crossed this week

Last week’s VIX at 14.45 looked absurd, and the market agreed. The multi-day sell-off pushed it back toward 17.5 as bond yields forced equity investors to do some basic maths for the first time in months. The yen is back at 160, right where the joint US-Japan intervention was supposed to draw a line. That intervention has been almost entirely erased. Someone described it as bringing a water pistol to a bushfire, and that’s about right.

The diesel crack spread above $100 is a real-world warning sign. That’s the refining margin between crude oil and diesel fuel. The previous record was $89, and that was before Iran started shutting down shipping lanes. For anyone in logistics, farming, or mining, diesel is the operating cost that matters most. And it just went parabolic.

Earnings season in the US has an 85% beat rate, one of the best in ages. Which sounds comforting until you remember that the same thing happened in 2001 and 2007, right before things got properly ugly. Nobody’s saying we’re there. But the consumer data is saying something the earnings haven’t caught up with yet.

ASX 200 Focus
BHP Delivers, Consumer Cracks, Private Equity Circles

The ASX earnings season theme this week was stark. Banks: weak. Consumer: weaker. Gold: very strong. The rest: it depends. BHP lifted its dividend 57% and kept shareholders happy, but the real drama was in the consumer pocket. JB Hi-Fi dropped 10% on results that confirmed what Nick Scali, Adairs, Harvey Norman, and Super Retail had already been telling us. People aren’t spending. NAB slipped 5%. Insurance stayed soft with QBE and IAG both under pressure.

The standout anomaly was Goodman Group. Reported well, fifty data centre projects across twelve countries, 6.4 gigawatts of contracted capacity (seven times NextDC, 40% larger than CoreWeave), and the stock went down. Still gets treated as a REIT when it’s probably the largest physical data centre play in the world. We don’t understand it either.

Private equity is circling the ASX like sharks around a reef. Brookfield bid $4.1 billion for Reliance Worldwide. Clean Away got an approach. Workday in the US got a Silver Lake bid. These are high-quality businesses trading at 30% discounts to global comparables because no fund manager wants to bother with mid-cap Australia. If we keep buying ETFs and ignoring everything outside the top twenty, private equity will keep picking off the good ones at a laugh.

▲ Bulls

Stockland (SGP) +12%

The surprise of the week. Property developer put up numbers nobody expected. In this rate environment, a 12% pop on earnings says a lot about positioning and expectations.

BHP Group (BHP) Dividend +57%

US$1.72/share for the full year. Biggest dividend in quite some time. Copper strategy front and centre. Stock held up well in a soft market.

Tealix Pharmaceuticals Maiden Profit

Swung from loss to profit. FDA approval update due September 11. If it gets the tick, this probably trades back above $25. If it doesn’t, probably back to $10. Binary.

Gold Miners +5–9%

Northern Star, Evolution (profit up high 40s%), and the broader gold complex ripped on bullion above $4,500. UBS $5,000/oz target getting more airtime.

▼ Bears

JB Hi-Fi (JBH) −10%

Revenue up 5% but the market wanted more. Best-run retailer in Australia, highest revenue per square metre globally, and still got punished. Consumer is cooked.

NAB (NAB) −5%

Q3 update. Mortgage application weakness continues the theme from Westpac and CBA. Banks dragged the index lower all week.

Cochlear (COH) Profit −20%

Profit dropped 20%. Healthcare investors still praying for CSL and Cochlear to get out of their own way. Mixed read-through for the sector.

Goodman Group (GMG) Down on result

50 data centre projects, 12 countries, 6.4GW contracted, bigger than CoreWeave. Stock dropped. Treated as a REIT when it’s a global data centre giant. Frustrating.

Other notables: Judo Capital bounced hard after the bad news proved priced in (opened $0.97, closed $1.15). ProMedicus had a wild ride, hitting $200 intraday in a $40 range. Hub24 beat forecasts. Breville got hit by US tariffs. Baby Bunting popped 22%. WiseTech got subpoenaed by the ACCC, which the market took worse than it probably deserved. Origin Energy reported well, with the Kraken/Octopus renewable energy platform getting attention. And Google issued a $5 billion kangaroo bond that attracted $13 billion of interest at a 20-year yield above 7%.

US Market Movers
Healthcare Rips, Consumer Wilts, Crypto Returns
▲ Bulls

Moderna (MRNA) +177%

Haven’t heard that name since COVID. Then it erupted. Gave back 24% the next day, but healthcare is the sector of the week. Eli Lilly up on digital twins, Merck +13% to all-time highs.

Bitcoin / Hyperliquid +15.3% / +30%

Bitcoin’s store-of-value trade is back. Crypto is back, baby. Trump mentioned Hyperliquid (MPC’s sole open crypto rec). A blockchain futures exchange that actually makes money. Shout out to Finn Judell.

Micron / SK Hynix +12% / +10%

Memory chip names bounced after the mid-week selloff. SOX-led correction created some buying opportunities, and the dip-buyers showed up.

John Deere (DE) Beat

Positive earnings from a company that’s quietly become a data science business wrapped in a tractor. Agricultural tech and automation story continues.

▼ Bears

Walmart (WMT) −10%

Comp sales 2.6% vs 3.8% expected. Weakest in six years, biggest drop since May 2022. If Walmart’s struggling, everyone should be nervous. The US consumer is tapping out.

Meta (META) −3%

Children’s advertising class action growing. Three straight down days. Building a data centre the size of Manhattan in Louisiana (Hyperion) but the legal headaches are piling up.

Intel (INTC) −5–6%

Still bleeding. SOX-led selloff caught the weakest name in semis. The foundry pivot narrative is running on fumes. Stock tells you what the market thinks.

Chip Stocks (SOX) Led the selloff

Broadcom −4%, Caterpillar and Lamb Research −3–5%. Rising bond yields forced a rotation out of high-duration growth into defensives and healthcare.

In the Media
MPC Markets This Week

Jonathan Tacadena — Ausbiz “The Open”
JONATHAN TACADENA | 17 Aug 2026 | ~8 min
ASX to dip ahead of a major earnings week. Setting the scene for BHP, CSL, NAB and the rest of the reporting calendar.
Mark Gardner — Ausbiz “The COB”
MARK GARDNER | 19 Aug 2026 | ~18 min
“Warrant-ed Worry” — Mark on the bond market, the Besant Put, and why 5.33% on the thirty-year should concern everyone.
Kai Chen — Ausbiz “The Call”
KAI CHEN | 20 Aug 2026 | ~57 min
Co-hosted with Howard Coleman (Teaminvest). Covered SGH, NCK, AUB, NXT, CSL, PME, ALD, SYL, WEB, AD8. Stock of the Day: Super Retail (SUL).
Morning Call — YouTube & Spotify
MARK GARDNER & PHIL DELOCKERY | 18–22 Aug 2026 | Daily
Daily pre-market wrap covering the bond selloff, Besant Put, ASX earnings season, consumer weakness, gold & crypto rallies, and the Hormuz truce expiry.
Mark Gardner — Livewire Markets Article
MARK GARDNER | 19 Aug 2026 | Article
The next phase of AI — beyond the data centre. Lessons from the 1996–2002 internet age applied to today’s AI buildout. Lead-in to Tuesday’s AI enablement webinar.

Analyst Perspectives
What the Street Is Saying

“The US dollar is a meme coin. Bought this back in 2013. It’s worth half of its purchasing power.”

MPC Markets Morning Call — on US fiscal trajectory

“The Besant Put is this generation’s Plaza Accord, except it doesn’t work and nobody believes in it.”

Bond market commentary — on Treasury’s long-end intervention

“Anthropic’s revenue run rate has been pushed up to sixty-five billion. That’s seven times what they expected at the end of last year.”

MPC Markets Morning Call — on the AI infrastructure thesis

“If you wanted to compare capacity in gigawatts, Goodman Group is by far the biggest. Seven times larger than NextDC, forty percent larger than CoreWeave.”

MPC Markets Morning Call — on Goodman Group’s data centre business

Week Ahead
Key Events & Catalysts — Week 35
Mon 25 Aug
ASX Earnings: Pilbara Minerals (PLS, FY26). US: Quiet start. Regional banks reporting.
Tue 26 Aug
ASX Earnings: Woolworths (WOW, FY26), Coles (COL, FY26), Wesfarmers (WES, FY26). Consumer spending reads from the big grocers. MPC Webinar: AI Age — Beyond the Data Centre, 12:30pm AEST.
Wed 27 Aug
AU: Monthly CPI Indicator (Jul). Critical for RBA trajectory. US: NVIDIA earnings after the bell (Thu ~7am AEST). The hype man cometh.
Thu 28 Aug
NVIDIA (NVDA): Q2 FY27 results. Jensen’s moment. Market needs him to deliver. ASX: Woodside (WDS, H1). US: Final GDP revision, Jobless Claims. Intuit, Salesforce earnings.
Fri 29 Aug
US: Core PCE Price Index (Jul). Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. ASX: Tail end of earnings season. South32.

NVIDIA on Wednesday night / Thursday morning AEST is the main event. With the SOX index having sold off all week and tech looking shaky, Jensen Huang needs to deliver a number that reminds everyone why they own chips. If anyone can sell the sector single-handedly, it’s him. Aussie CPI on Wednesday is the domestic macro event. Woolworths, Coles, and Wesfarmers on Tuesday will tell us whether the consumer weakness showing up in JB Hi-Fi is widespread or concentrated. And the MPC AI enablement webinar is Tuesday at 12:30pm if you want to hear Kai explain what comes after the data centre buildout.

Earnings Calendar
Key Reporting Dates — Week 35

Date	Company	Ticker	Focus
Mon 25	Pilbara Minerals	PLS.ASX	FY26 results; lithium pricing, spodumene demand
Tue 26	Woolworths	WOW.ASX	FY26 results; consumer spending pulse from groceries
Tue 26	Coles Group	COL.ASX	FY26 results; margins, cost of living impact
Tue 26	Wesfarmers	WES.ASX	FY26 results; Bunnings, Kmart, lithium (Mt Holland)
Wed 27	NVIDIA	NVDA	Q2 FY27 after the bell. Thu ~7am AEST. Market mood setter.
Thu 28	Woodside Energy	WDS.ASX	H1 results; LNG pricing, Hormuz premium
Thu 28	Intuit	INTU	Software bellwether; AI integration progress
Thu 28	Salesforce	CRM	SaaS health check; AI agent monetisation

MPC Markets View
The Bond Market Is Telling You Something

We spent the first ten years of our careers watching CPI and PPI come in at 0.1, 0.1, month after month, year after year. Those days aren’t coming back. And this week proved that the bond market knows it, even if equities keep pretending otherwise.

The Besant Put lasted about three days. You can’t buy your way out of $40 trillion in debt with a handful of thirty-year bond purchases. Someone described it as bringing a water pistol to a bushfire. And when the yen intervention, the bond buybacks, and the fiscal promises all fail in the same month, people start looking for exits. Gold above $4,500. Bitcoin up 15% in a week. Silver, platinum, crypto, all bid. The exit routes are getting crowded.

The consumer is cracking. Retail sales, Michigan sentiment, Walmart comps. Three data points in one week all saying the same thing. People are keeping their wallets closed. On the ASX, JB Hi-Fi, Nick Scali, Adairs, Harvey Norman, Super Retail have all said the same thing. This isn’t one company having a bad quarter. This is a trend.

And then there’s Goodman. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: 6.4 gigawatts of contracted data centre capacity across fifty projects in twelve countries, bigger than CoreWeave and NextDC combined, and the thing trades as a REIT. We don’t get it. Anthropic’s revenue run rate is at $65 billion, seven times expectations. The AI buildout is real and accelerating, and the best data centre company in the world sits on our exchange getting ignored.

Next week is all about NVIDIA and the consumer. Jensen needs to deliver, because the tech bros need a reason to stop selling. Woolworths, Coles, and Wesfarmers will tell us whether JB Hi-Fi was a one-off or the canary. Aussie CPI will inform the RBA trajectory. And the bond market will keep doing what bond markets do, which is tell you the truth about fiscal policy whether anyone wants to hear it or not.

MPC Markets — Bulls & Bears Weekend Edition
Weekly market intelligence for MPC Markets clients | mpcmarkets.com.au
Prepared Friday 22 August 2026 | Based on week ending 22 August 2026

This newsletter is prepared by MPC Markets for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. All market data is sourced from publicly available information and may be subject to revision. MPC Markets and its associates may hold positions in securities discussed. Please read our Financial Services Guide and consider whether any information in this publication is appropriate for your circumstances before making investment decisions. MPC Markets Pty Ltd — Australian Financial Services Licence 540953.