The stock market rebounded on Friday as oil prices declined by roughly 2–3%, helping ease some concerns over inflation.
Meanwhile, the August Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.4% month-over-month and 3.4% year-over-year, broadly in line with expectations. The data led investors to increase their bets that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates later this month.
Overall, S&P 500 rose 0.9% to 7,657, while Nasdaq grew 1.0% to 26,333.
Chart of the Day
Here is the one-year chart of AppLovin (APP) as of August 31, 2026, when the stock was at $312.
The leading video game marketing platform, AppLovin, missed its own revenue estimates last quarter, sending the shares lower. The company delivered 57% profit growth on 53% revenue growth, which we felt was impressive. Revenue came in at $1.92 billion, below the midpoint of AppLovin’s own guidance range of $2.06 billion to $2.09 billion. The miss might have been due to the World Cup games taking users from playing games to watching TV.
However, management stated improvement arrived just after quarter-end and AppLovin was already driving stronger performance this quarter.
After 14 years of being an invite-only or referral based platform for large companies, Axon opened to the general public (consumers) last quarter. Now, small advertisers or businesses that often advertised on search and social media can sign up to run ads with Axon. However, that “consumer” business is taking time to build up, with management saying the process could take “quarters and years”.
APP is part of our Growth Portfolio and Focus List. David Sharek, Founder of School of Hard Stocks, thinks the stock has vast potential, but the digital ad space is competitive and that makes the stock a bit speculative. After last quarter’s disappointing results, investors are now waiting to see what next quarter’s earnings look like.
