Weekly Financial News — August 14, 2026

🌍 Dominant theme of the week

The week of 10 to 14 August 2026 was governed by two softer-than-expected US inflation prints, in a regime where the feared risk is still a rate increase. The July consumer price index, released on Wednesday 12 August, came in at 0.1% on the month and 3.4% on the year, in line with consensus, and producer prices were flat on Thursday 13 August, taking their annual rate from 5.5% to 4.7%. The probability of a Fed hike on 16 September fell from 40.6% to 32.4% on the CME FedWatch tool. On Friday the sequence turned: July retail sales dropped 0.6% and consumer sentiment fell to 51.0. In the background, crude regained close to 5% over the week after the International Energy Agency deepened its estimate of the global supply deficit.

📉 Weekly market performance

Changes measured at the Friday 14 August 2026 close.

• The S&P 500 set a record on Thursday before slipping back – The index crossed 7,800 points for the first time on Thursday, with an intraday high of 7,816.70 and a record close of 7,799 according to CoinDesk. It lost 0.17% on Friday and still booked a third straight winning week.
• The CAC 40 posts its first losing week since mid-July – The Paris index ended at 8,636.80 points, a fourth consecutive losing session, and shed 0.90% over the week according to BFM Bourse. Volumes stayed light ahead of the 15 August holiday.
• The STOXX 600 snaps a four-week winning run – The pan-European index closed at 657.86 points and lost 0.3% over the week, within 1% of its record. The rebound in crude cancelled out the support of quarterly earnings.
• Tokyo and Seoul deliver the performance of the week – The Nikkei 225 rose 0.6% on Friday to 68,713.80 points, having reclaimed 69,000 intraday for the first time since 13 July, and the Topix set a record above 4,200 points. The Kospi added 2.42%.

🛢️ Commodities & Energy

• Brent regains close to 5% and its war premium – The October contract was worth $87.73 a barrel on Friday evening and WTI $81.58, according to Boursorama, against $83.44 seven days earlier. That is the first weekly gain in three weeks.
• The IEA deepens its estimate of the global supply deficit – In its 12 August report, the agency cut 2026 world supply to 102 million barrels a day, 4.3 million less than a year earlier, and almost doubled its third-quarter deficit estimate, to 1.8 million barrels. It cites the Hormuz shutdown and the blockade of Iranian exports.
• Gold and silver recover about 2% – Spot gold traded around $4,371 an ounce on Friday according to Fortune, against $4,285.89 a week earlier. Silver hovered around $65 an ounce, its highest since 22 June.
• Aluminium slips as US gas rebounds – Aluminium was quoted at $3,247.45 a tonne on Friday according to Trading Economics, against about $3,273 seven days earlier. Henry Hub gas was worth $2.78 per million BTU, against $2.65, and Dutch TTF around 60.56 euros per megawatt hour.

🏦 Central banks

No decision was scheduled: the four major central banks acted in late July and meet again in September.

• The probability of a Fed hike falls below 35% – The federal funds range stays at 3.50% to 3.75% ahead of the 15 and 16 September meeting. After the producer price data, the CME FedWatch tool gave a hike 32.4%, against 40.6% the day before.
• Kevin Warsh’s committee remains split on what comes next – Nine of the eighteen participants pencil at least one 2026 rate increase into their projections, and the policy statement has lost its easing bias. The chair has said he would not hesitate to act against inflation.
• An ECB hike in September is still widely expected – The Governing Council, which raised rates on 11 June and then held the deposit facility at 2.25% on 23 July, meets on 10 September. Christine Lagarde has warned that durably high energy prices would feed inflation through second-round effects.
• Markets see a Bank of Japan hike in September – Tokyo Tanshi data put the probability of an increase at 76%, against 24% on 30 July, with the policy rate at 1.00%. The Bank of England, at 3.75%, decides on 17 September.

📊 Macro data

• US inflation eases to 3.4% in July – Consumer prices rose 0.1% on the month and 3.4% on the year, a tenth less than in June, with the core index up 0.2% on the month, in line with the Dow Jones consensus.
• Producer prices were flat – The final demand index was unchanged in July, against an expected rise of 0.1% to 0.2%, and its annual rate fell to 4.7%, the lowest since March. Goods dropped 0.7% while services rose 0.2%.
• US retail sales fall 0.6% in July – Retail and food services posted $763.6 billion according to the Census Bureau, where the consensus expected 0.1% to 0.2% growth. That is the steepest drop since May 2025, with motor vehicles down 1.8%.
• US consumer sentiment falls to 51 points – The preliminary August reading came in at 51.0, against 54.5 expected and 55.2 in July, ending two months of improvement. Year-ahead inflation expectations climb to 4.3%.
• The euro area confirms 0.4% growth in the second quarter – Eurostat published on Friday GDP growth of 0.4% in the euro area and 0.5% in the European Union, or 1.0% and 1.2% year on year. UK GDP also rose 0.4%.
• Insee confirms French inflation at 2.1% in July – Consumer prices rose 2.1% year on year after 1.8% in June, with the harmonised index at 2.4%. The acceleration comes from services, at 2.2%, and from energy, at 12.6%.

🪙 Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin erases the previous week’s rebound – The price traded around $62,929 on Friday according to CoinDesk, its lowest since 3 August, against about $64,750 seven days earlier. The easing of US rate expectations did not benefit the sector.
• Spot ETFs record two days of outflows – US funds lost about $192 million over two sessions, including $131 million on 13 August, the first such run since late July. The month had opened with $626 million of inflows, $479 million of it into BlackRock’s IBIT.
• Ether stays below $1,900 – Ether was worth $1,878.91 on Friday, against about $1,910 a week earlier. Ether.fi gained 11.5% and Cosmos 10%, while NEAR, Morpho and Bittensor fell around 2%.
• Sentiment gauges stay in fear territory – CoinMarketCap’s Fear and Greed index edged up a point to 37, but readings diverge across providers, from 29 to 44 on 14 August. Open interest rose 3%, to 765,000 bitcoin.

💱 Currencies

• The euro holds above $1.15 – The single currency traded at $1.1583 on Friday evening, against $1.1568 a week earlier, leaving it close to flat on the week. The dollar index fell back to around 99.8.
• The yen posts its largest weekly loss in three months – The Japanese currency lost about 1% over the week, to 159.43 per dollar, wiping out half the gains from the joint intervention of late July. Mitsuhiro Furusawa, Tokyo’s former top currency official, told Reuters that fresh intervention could come at any time.

📈 Investment themes & analysis

• Morningstar describes a rotation away from technology – According to the research house, industrials, consumer defensives and energy are leading the market higher in 2026 while large technology names falter. Investors, it argues, want evidence that artificial intelligence spending converts into revenue.
• Debt tied to artificial intelligence weighs on long yields – Bond issuance for that infrastructure is expected at around $570 billion in 2026, more than double the 2025 figure, according to Morningstar. This week the US ten-year yield added 5 basis points to 4.67% and the thirty-year climbed to 5.27%.
• Reddit joins the S&P 500 on 18 August – The stock jumped 12.56% on Friday after the announcement of its index inclusion, replacing AvalonBay Communities, while Broadcom lost 5.94%.
• European earnings keep separating individual stocks – Maersk gained 8.7% on Friday, its highest in four years, after a guidance upgrade, and insurer Aviva 1.8%. In Paris, Valneva, which is not a CAC 40 constituent, surged 22.2% after the acceptance of the filing for its Lyme disease vaccine.

🧠 Editorial / Educational

In a note published on 13 August, SIA Charts devotes a piece to the cognitive biases of the investor. Its central argument is that portfolio quality depends less on market knowledge than on the ability to recognise distortions of judgement: overconfidence, confirmation bias, herding, loss aversion and the disposition effect. The research house recommends substituting measurement for prediction and formalising a written process that creates distance between an opinion and an order. The real test, it writes, comes when the evidence contradicts the original thesis.

🔭 Observed trends

• The regime is still fear of a hike – Every data point is read through the tightening question: the 7 August employment report brought the probability of an increase down to 44%, and producer prices took it to 32.4%. That is the opposite of the 2023 to 2025 reflex.
• Long yields rise as hike expectations fall – US ten-year and thirty-year yields climbed even as the probability of tightening receded, a dissociation that points to the supply of long-dated bonds rather than to monetary policy.
• Europe lags while Tokyo accelerates – After four winning weeks and a record for the STOXX 600, European markets ran into the rebound in crude, of which the euro area is a net importer, while the Nikkei gained close to 5%.
• Cryptocurrencies decouple from equities – The S&P 500 set a record on Thursday while bitcoin fell to its lowest in eleven days, with net outflows from ETFs. That decoupling contrasts with the first week of August.

This content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult a qualified financial adviser before making any investment decision.

Weekly financial bulletin automatically generated on August 14, 2026.