10 Stocks Worth Watching This Week: Core PCE, Nvidia, and a Hawkish Jackson Hole — August 24–28, 2026

The market walks into this week with an unusual problem: it can no longer assume the next Fed move is down.

Last week ended with equities lower and the Nasdaq leading the decline. The proximate causes were twofold — a relentless rise in energy prices that reignited inflation concerns (WTI crude gained 4.8% to about $86), and a heavy calendar of AI-related debt issuance that pushed long-end Treasury yields back toward a 20-year high. The strong-economy data didn't help the rate picture either: the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index printed 47.4 against a consensus of 25, and initial jobless claims fell to 206,000. An economy this hot, with core PCE still running at 3.3% year over year, is why three FOMC members dissented in favor of a hike at the last meeting and why the rates market is now pricing roughly 9 basis points of hike risk for September — about 23 basis points of net tightening for the remainder of 2026.

Meanwhile, the hard-asset tape is telling its own story. Gold surged 3.1% to a record near $4,513. Bitcoin ripped 17.3% to roughly $73,700. The dollar index slipped to 98.8. That combination — record gold, surging crypto, soft dollar, rising long yields — is the signature of a market hedging against an inflation regime the Fed hasn't broken.

Against that backdrop, this week stacks three catalysts in four days:

• Wednesday, August 26: July core PCE (consensus +0.2% month over month, 3.3% annual), alongside durable goods and the second estimate of Q2 GDP. A hot print puts a September hike squarely on the table.
• Wednesday night into Thursday: the tail end of Q2 earnings season, and it's all AI — Nvidia, Salesforce, CrowdStrike, and HP on Wednesday; Marvell, IREN, Workday, and Best Buy on Thursday.
• Thursday through Saturday: the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, Chair Kevin Warsh's first as host, under the theme "Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy" — an agenda built around stablecoins, tokenization, and digital payments. Friday also brings the preliminary annual benchmark revision to nonfarm payrolls, a release that has moved markets before.

Add China's National People's Congress session running Tuesday through Friday, and there is a catalyst attached to nearly every name below. Here are the ten stocks we're watching, starting with the three that define the week.

1. Nvidia (NVDA) — ~$215 | Swing / Catalyst

Thesis: Nvidia's Wednesday report is the single most important data point of the week for equities — not just for the stock, but for the AI-capex complex whose debt issuance is currently pressuring long-end yields. The setup into the print is constructive: BMO initiated coverage last week with a Buy rating and named Nvidia its top AI pick, and on Friday the company announced a partnership with data-center developer Cloverleaf — the latest in its pattern of directly seeding the buildout that drives its own demand. The quarter itself matters less than two things: commentary on the Vera Rubin platform ramp, and any signal about the durability of hyperscaler orders into 2027.

This week's catalyst: Fiscal Q2 earnings, Wednesday, August 26, after the close.

Key risk: The bar is enormous, and the macro has changed. With yields near 20-year highs, the market has started scrutinizing how the AI buildout is being financed. A merely in-line guide — or cautious Vera Rubin timing — hits the entire complex, not just NVDA.

2. CrowdStrike (CRWD) — ~$192 | Swing / Catalyst

Thesis: CrowdStrike walks into Wednesday's earnings with a freshly dented tape: shares fell almost 5% last week on the news that CTO Elia Zaitsev is leaving to launch an AI-focused cybersecurity venture fund. Executive-departure selloffs into earnings are one of the more reliable overreaction patterns in large-cap software — the quarter was already in the books before the announcement, and the platform-consolidation thesis (endpoint, identity, cloud security, and now agentic-AI protection on one agent) doesn't rest on one executive. If net-new ARR and the Falcon Flex adoption numbers hold, the pre-earnings dip is the setup, not the warning.

This week's catalyst: Fiscal Q2 earnings, Wednesday, August 26, after the close.

Key risk: If guidance softens alongside the CTO departure, the market will connect the two dots into a narrative, and premium-multiple software gets sold hard in a rising-yield tape.

3. Newmont (NEM) — ~$132 | Macro / Thematic

Thesis: Gold just printed a record near $4,513 — up 3.1% in a week in which the market raised its Fed hike odds. That is not how gold is supposed to trade, and the divergence is the tell: central-bank accumulation and inflation-regime hedging are overwhelming the real-rate headwind. For the world's largest gold producer, the operating leverage at these prices is extraordinary — every $100 above budget assumptions drops nearly straight to free cash flow, funding buybacks and dividends that were sized for a $2,500 gold world. NEM remains one of the cheaper ways to own the "Fed credibility" hedge through equity.

This week's catalyst: Wednesday's core PCE print — a hot number reinforces the inflation-hedge bid — and the tone from Jackson Hole on Thursday and Friday.

Key risk: A genuinely hawkish surprise (hike signaled, real yields spike) triggers the sharp-but-shallow gold corrections this cycle has repeatedly produced; miners fall two to three times as fast as the metal.

The rest of this briefing is free — it just requires a free AlphaBriefing account: the two AI names reporting Thursday with the cleanest setups into the print, the exchange positioned directly on Jackson Hole's tokenization agenda, and the four long-term positions we'd be building before the September Fed meeting.

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