Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market opened to broad-based gains, seating the S&P 500 (-0.3%), Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%), and DJIA (-0.6%) below their flatlines.

Eight S&P 500 sectors trade in negative territory, with the consumer staples sector (-1.4%) facing the widest loss. The sector was the best-performing S&P 500 sector this week coming into today's trade, but losses in Walmart (WMT 97.18, -5.39, -5.25%) after a rare earnings miss have permeated throughout the sector.

Walmart did guide Q3 EPS above consensus and reaffirm its FY26 guidance, but the company did note that its costs are increasing this week as it replenishes inventory at post-tariff price levels. 

Mega-cap underperformance has been a key driver of price action this week, which continues to be the case today. However, the losses so far are not as wide as yesterday's, with the information technology (-0.3%) and communication services (-0.1%) sectors seeing some mixed performance in their mega-cap constituents, while the consumer discretionary sector (-0.8%) lags. 

The preliminary August S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing PMI increased to 53.3 from a prior level of 49.8.

The preliminary August S&P Global Services PMI decreased to 55.4 from a prior level of 55.7. 

Existing home sales decreased 2.0% month-over-month in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.01 million (Briefing.com consensus 3.92 million) from an unrevised 3.93 million in June.

July leading indicators decreased 0.1% (Briefing.com -0.1%) from a prior decrease of 0.3%.