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Market Data Table

Breakfast News: Week in Review

August 21, 2026

Thursday's Markets
S&P 500 7,641 (-0.87%)
Nasdaq 26,067 (-1.00%)
Dow 52,759 (-1.32%)
Bitcoin $72,927 (+6.68%)

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Investing demands patience, and every so often, there's a week that makes the case for sitting still and doing nothing. On Wednesday, a stock that had disappointed since its COVID pandemic boom days came roaring back on the news of its medical breakthrough, finally rewarding investors. Elsewhere, three businesses we've recommended kept growing their leads by advancing the strategies we believed in. And earnings season marches on, with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) taking its turn in the spotlight next week.

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1) Moderna Doubles on a Cancer-Vaccine First

Chart comparing the stocks performance of Moderna to the others in the biotech sector. Moderna is up 177%, Merck is up 13%, the iShares Biotechnology ETF is up 26%, and BioNTech is up 17%.

Moderna's (NASDAQ:MRNA) COVID vaccine made a fortune, then orders dried up, and the shares drifted for years. Then, on Wednesday, the stock jumped 177% on news of a clinical trial breakthrough. It gave back some gains on Thursday and closed at $133, still double where the week began, though far below its pandemic-era peak.

Moderna, a recommendation in Hidden Gems and Rule Breakers, makes medicines from mRNA, the same technology as its COVID shot. Its cancer vaccine candidate is built for each patient from their own tumor, then administered with Merck's (NYSE:MRK) drug Keytruda.

A first in cancer medicine. The trial enrolled 1,137 melanoma patients whose tumors had been surgically removed. Those given the candidate with Keytruda saw cancer return less often than patients on Keytruda alone. The companies did not release specific figures, so we know it worked but not by how much. An earlier, smaller study showed a 49% lower risk of recurrence or death.
Why one trial repriced the whole company. The approach can potentially target many cancers. Moderna is already testing it against lung, kidney, and bladder cancers.
First comes FDA, then longevity evidence. The partners' next regulatory step is to file with the Food and Drug Administration, and CEO Stéphane Bancel thinks approval could happen in 2027. This week's data showed the drug candidate delays cancer's return; whether patients live longer will be answered in late 2029.

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2) Disney Details Its $60 Billion Parks Investment

Ask most people what Disney (NYSE:DIS) is, and they'll say "movies." But if you follow the money instead, it's experiences that rake in the most profit. Its parks, cruises, and resorts brought in nearly $10 billion last quarter, up 10% from a year earlier, with 3% more people coming, each spending 4% more once inside. That's where Disney, a Stock Advisor recommendation, earns its keep.

Where the $60 billion goes. Disney pledged that money to its parks back in 2023. At its D23 fan convention last weekend, management finally showed the plans: new lands built around Marvel's Avengers, Disney villains, and Pixar's Monsters, Inc.
Anyone can build a roller coaster. Nobody else has Snow White, Spider-Man, and Simba under one roof. Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) spends freely on its Universal parks in Orlando and still reported thinner crowds.

Parents don't book Disney trips for a new ride. They book because their kid loves a character they loved first. Its intellectual property is what keeps prices rising and the parks full.

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3) Retail Trend Reverses

For years, Walmart (NASDAQ:WMT) was retail's safe bet and Target (NYSE: TGT) the turnaround project. This week, they traded places. Target hit a 52-week high after raising its forecast, while Walmart fell 8% in a day.

Target sales at established stores climbed 3.8%, past the 2.4% expected. A $752 million tariff refund flattered the quarter, but strip it out and management still raised its full-year forecast. Target's new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, who took over in February, is off to a good start.
Home Depot’s (NYSE:HD) established stores had their best quarter in nearly four years for this Dividend Investor recommendation. Management reaffirmed its outlook rather than raising it, blaming a housing market where nobody's moving. It spent most of a $730 million tariff refund holding prices down.
TJX (NYSE:TJX), parent of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, grew sales 4% but guided to just 2% to 3% next quarter. Earnings per share rose 24%; back out the refund and it's 11%.
Walmart raised its full-year outlook. But sales at established U.S. stores grew just 2.6%, the slowest since 2020, and its guidance for this quarter landed light. Management plans to use its tariff refund to lower prices.

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4) Three Compounders We Still Believe In

If you own these three Fool recommendations, this week you were reminded why you bought them.

Comfort Systems (NYSE:FIX) installs heating and cooling systems, which sounds unglamorous until you consider that AI data centers run hot and someone has to move that heat. Team Hidden Gems recommended it in March 2025 at $355, and it's up nearly 5X, to $1,674 today.
TransMedics (NASDAQ:TMDX) built a system that keeps donated hearts, livers, and lungs alive and working outside the body, so more of them survive the trip to a patient. Both Teams have recommended it more than 30 times collectively since 2019, and it's up roughly 289% from that first recommendation.
Axon Enterprise (NASDAQ:AXON) makes the Tasers, body cameras, and software used by more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies worldwide. Team Rule Breakers first recommended it in 2004. The stock sank to $339 this spring and trades around $614 today. Revenue grew 35% from a year ago.

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5) Amazon Owns Its Drones. Uber Borrows.

Your next takeout order might arrive from the sky. Two of our recommendations are chasing that, and they've picked opposite routes.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), recommended by both Teams, is expanding its Prime Air drone service to nearly 500 U.S. towns by year-end, six times its current reach. Amazon builds the drones and flies them from its own warehouses.
Uber (NYSE:UBER), a Rule Breakers recommendation, doesn't want to own aircraft any more than it wanted to own cars. It's putting partner Zipline's drones inside the Uber Eats app, aiming for a million deliveries a day by 2029.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) beat them both, with more than a million deliveries using its own Wing drones already flown for Walmart and DoorDash (NASDAQ:DASH).

Owning the drones costs Amazon more but gives it control over every flight. Uber pays less upfront and gets instant reach. Neither earns a profit on drone delivery yet, which makes this an interesting divergence worth following.

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6) Week Ahead: Nvidia Headlines Tech Earnings

Four big tech players report next week: CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD), Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA), and Nvidia, which takes the stage Wednesday afternoon. No company's earnings say more about how the AI boom is holding up than Nvidia.

The company has been trimming its own risk. Nvidia agreed to help finance a giant OpenAI data center campus in Ohio, then cut back how much it would guarantee, from an initial $250 billion down to roughly $105 billion. Nvidia isn't retreating from AI. It's deciding how much of someone else's risk to carry.
What we'll be watching: Nvidia sells the chips and helps finance the buyers, so its forecast is the clearest read on AI spending. Is it still accelerating, or leveling off as investors push for returns? We've recommended Nvidia more than 30 times across our services, and our analysts will break down its quarterly results for members.

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7) Your Take

Moderna's shareholders waited years for positive returns. What company are you still holding for a payoff that hasn't arrived?

Share with friends and family, or become a member to hear what your fellow Fools are saying!

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