Monday, August 03, 2026

Markets nudged higher to end the week, with the S&P 500 adding 0.72% to $747.03 and the Nasdaq-100 gaining 0.65% to $687.99. The 524-stock AI infrastructure universe underperformed slightly, posting an average move of +0.36% — 36 basis points behind the SPY — on 304 advancers against 216 decliners. Networking equipment led the sectors at +2.24%, while power generation lagged at -1.29%. IESC (IES Holdings, Inc.) surged 30.3% to top the board, and HUN (Huntsman Corporation) fell 19.1% to lead the downside in chip materials. Today’s calendar brings the July ISM manufacturing reading and a full slate of reports from ON (ON Semiconductor Corporation), POWL (Powell Industries, Inc.), and WMB (The Williams Companies, Inc.), while the week ahead features critical readouts from AMD (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.), LUMN (Lumen Technologies, Inc.), WDC (Western Digital Corporation), and TLN (Talen Energy Corporation).

AVA (Avista Corporation) reported second-quarter 2026 financial results this morning and confirmed its full-year 2026 utility earnings guidance. No specific EPS figures were detailed in the initial release, but the reaffirmation of the annual outlook signals steady performance at the regulated electric and gas utility.

L (Loews Corporation) also posted Q2 numbers before the open, disclosing net income of $444 million for the period. The holding company’s energy infrastructure arm, which includes natural gas pipelines via Boardwalk, remains a relevant component of the broader power-generation fuel supply chain.

KKR (KKR & Co. Inc.) closed a $19.2 billion infrastructure fund and, in a separate transaction, agreed to acquire a 50% stake in a portfolio of developed renewable assets from TotalEnergies across Europe. The twin moves deepen KKR’s commitment to renewable energy infrastructure at a time when data center operators are racing to secure clean, around-the-clock power supply.

SO (The Southern Company) launched concurrent convertible note offerings totalling $2.15 billion, comprising $650 million due December 2027 and $1.5 billion due September 2029. The utility giant is one of the largest transmission and generation operators in the Southeast, a region that has absorbed a wave of data center campus announcements over the past twelve months. The capital raise is being positioned for general corporate purposes, though the scale underscores the funding requirements of grid expansion in a period of accelerating electrification.

LUMN reports Tuesday. The fiber and enterprise network provider has been pivoting its wholesale business toward AI-driven bandwidth needs, particularly for inter-data-center connectivity. Commentary on the size and duration of any new AI-related contracts will be the key metric.

AMD also reports Tuesday, and its data center GPU revenue trajectory will be parsed for evidence of a growing second source to Nvidia in large-scale AI training and inference clusters. Any update on the MI350 ramp, supply constraints, or cloud customer adoption rates will directly feed the narrative around silicon diversification.

WDC reports Tuesday. Storage demand from cloud and AI workloads has been a bright spot for the hard disk drive and flash memory markets. The company’s outlook for near-term exabyte growth in nearline and enterprise SSD shipments will serve as a real-time gauge of data center storage investment.

TLN reports Wednesday. Talen’s nuclear-powered Susquehanna site, connected directly to an AWS data center campus, makes it a live case study for the co-location model. The market will focus on realized power pricing, any incremental expansion agreements, and the broader regulatory pathway for pairing baseload nuclear generation with hyperscale load.