{"id":83335,"date":"2026-08-26T16:56:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T06:56:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/?p=83335"},"modified":"2026-08-26T16:56:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T06:56:29","slug":"general-market-analysis-26-08-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/general-market-analysis-26-08-26\/","title":{"rendered":"General Market Analysis \u2013 26\/08\/26"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>US Stocks Higher Ahead of Key Earnings \u2013Nasdaq up 0.66%<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>US stocks pushed higher in trading yesterday as investors looked ahead to Nvidia\u2019s latest earnings results, with the Nasdaq leading the gains. The Nasdaq rose 0.66% to close at 26,151, while the S&amp;P 500 added 0.32% to finish at 7,677. The Dow Jones also moved higher, gaining 0.30% to close at 53,577.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Treasury yields pulled back across the curve as markets continued to price in the prospect of increased bond buybacks from the US Treasury. The 2-year yield fell 5.8 basis points to 4.174%, while the 10-year yield dropped 6.7 basis points to 4.629%. The move lower in yields helped keep the dollar under pressure, with the USD Index edging 0.09% lower to 98.91.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oil prices were the major mover, with Brent crude falling 5.48% to $87.12 and WTI dropping 3.12% to $82.36. Crude prices slipped to one-week lows as investors appeared to take some comfort from the prospect of US sanctions rather than a further escalation in hostilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gold was relatively steady after earlier pushing to fresh multi-month highs, with the precious metal closing 0.11% higher at $4,656.59. The broader backdrop of lower Treasury yields and a softer dollar continued to provide support, although traders remain focused on whether gold can sustain its recent move higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>US Inflation Data in Focus for Traders Today<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Traders are preparing for a busy final trading session of the day today. Not only will they have to deal with the ever-present possibility of a geopolitical update hitting the news wires, but they also have the FOMC\u2019s favoured inflation data, the Core PCE Price Index numbers, due out. The market is expecting to see a 0.2% increase in the month-on-month number, with the annual figure coming in at +3.2%, still well above the 2% target. Although recent data has come in weaker than expected and pulled back Fed rate hike expectations, a sticky print today could heighten those calls for a 25-basis point rise at the September meeting. Anything stronger than expected would see the dollar push higher, while weaker numbers could see a rate hike for September taken completely off the table and see the dollar break into fresh downside ranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Busier Event Calendar for Traders Today<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Attention now turns to a much busier macroeconomic calendar, with Australian CPI data due during the Asian session a big focus early in the day. Market expectation is for the headline month-on-month number to jump to +0.9% after a -0.1% print last time out, while the year-on-year number drops down to a 3.3% increase, and traders are expecting plenty of volatility in the Aussie around the event. There is little on the schedule in the London session; however, there is a big US data drop early in the New York day. The Federal Reserve\u2019s preferred inflation measure, Core PCE Price Index (exp +0.2% m\/m), is due alongside preliminary US GDP (exp +1.5% q\/q) and Durable Goods (exp +0.5%) data. The combination of inflation and growth data could provide fresh clues on the outlook for US interest rates and add further volatility across bonds, the dollar and equities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US Stocks Higher Ahead of Key Earnings \u2013Nasdaq up 0.66% US [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":83336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-market-analysis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83337,"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83335\/revisions\/83337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icmarkets.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}