S&P 500 closes at a record 7,798.99 on August 13, 2026 — the Dow added 0.13%

Two sessions, two inflation prints, two rallies. On August 12 it was consumer prices. On August 13 it was producer prices. Both undershot forecasts, and stocks rose both times.

7,798.99. A new record close for the S&P 500, six sessions after the last one.

On the same day the Dow added 0.13%.

1. Three indexes, one session

Only the S&P 500 set a record. The Dow's record close remains 54,085.88, set on August 4 — this close is 245.89 points below it. An index that was printing fresh highs on five consecutive sessions in early August has not returned to that level in ten days.

0.65% against 0.13% is a five-fold gap. Easy to dismiss as noise on any one day; harder to dismiss when it has repeated through August.

2. The catalyst was wholesale inflation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released July producer prices that morning.

Three of four lines came in below expectations. Following a headline CPI of 3.4% the day before, the wholesale stage of the price chain also refused to accelerate, and one of the arguments for a September hike weakened.

One caveat belongs with that table. The "core" above strips food and energy. The BLS also publishes a second core measure — stripping food, energy and trade services — and that one rose 0.4% on the month, up from 0.1% in June. Two core numbers, one release, and the market reacted to the smaller one.

3. What actually moved

The Nasdaq's advance was attributed to Meta Platforms, Micron Technology and Netflix. Beneath the index, late-season earnings split the tape hard.

• Workday — up 21% on acquisition speculation
• Cerebras — down 16% after results disappointed
• Cisco — fell after reporting
• Applied Materials — down about 2.5%, reported after the close

A session in which one stock gains a fifth of its value while another loses a sixth does not read like a quiet day, even though the index moves were small. Why strong AI results do not always lift a share price is covered in our earlier piece on reading AI earnings.

4. Where rate expectations stand

Softer inflation lowers the implied odds of a hike. The complication is that the specific probability gets quoted differently depending on the source and the hour.

After the weak July jobs report on August 7, one tally put the odds of the Fed holding in September at 60%; a week before that, futures implied roughly a 65% chance of a hike. After the August 12 CPI print, the figure this page cited was a 42% probability of a September hike. The post-PPI figure is not pinned down here.

What can be stated is direction. The three US data points released so far in August — July payrolls at -23,000, July CPI at 3.4%, July PPI at 0.0% — all cut the same way. Equities welcomed all three.

5. What is unresolved

One outlet reported that the S&P 500 traded above 7,800 for the first time during the session. The intraday high could not be confirmed, so only the close appears above.

The next scheduled test is Jackson Hole at the end of August. Three August data points have pointed in one direction; the Federal Reserve has not yet said whether it reads them the same way.

For anyone trading Korea alongside the US, one calendar item: Korean markets are closed on Monday August 17 for a substitute holiday, so the next Korean session after Friday August 14 is Tuesday August 18, while New York trades on both August 14 and 17.