Global Equities Report - August 2026

Executive Summary

Reporting period: 1 – 31 August 2026.

August was a good month for equities. The S&P 500 gained 2.62% to 7,686.14, the Nasdaq 3.93% and the Dow 1.34%, with seven of eleven sectors higher , a far broader advance than any single week in the month suggested. But the index set an all-time high of 7,814 mid-month and closed 1.6% below it, because the last week of August repriced the front end of the Treasury curve. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used Jackson Hole on 28 August to say the Committee must be confident inflation is moving to target “clearly and at sufficient speed — otherwise, we have work to do.” The market now prices a live possibility of a rate increase at the 15–16 September meeting.

The rates picture over the month is the detail that matters. The ten-year Treasury finished August at 4.75%, exactly where it started. The two-year rose six basis points to 4.34% and the thirty-year fell two to 5.25%, flattening the two-to-ten spread from 47 to 41 basis points. Equities gained 2.62% with the long end unchanged, which means August's advance was earnings and multiple, not rates. Nvidia's 96.2 billion dollar quarter, up 106% year on year, was the single largest contributor to that.

Energy led at 7.41% and Information Technology followed at 6.36%, an unusual pairing that reflects a supply-driven oil market running alongside an AI capital cycle. Utilities fell 4.78%, Industrials 2.62% and Real Estate 2.13% — the bond proxies and the rate-sensitive cyclicals. At index level the S&P trades at 24.81x trailing against a 20.45x ten-year average, but at 20.25x forward it sits level with that average. On trailing earnings the equity risk premium is -72 basis points; on forward earnings it is +19. The market is priced for roughly 23% earnings growth and very little else.