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Explore this week’s top tech news and market movers, plus key catalysts to watch next week.
Welcome to the Investing News Network's weekly brief on tech news and tech stocks driving the market.
We also break down next week's catalysts to help you prepare for the week ahead.
In this article:
This week's tech sector performance
Global stock markets traded quietly on Monday (August 24) morning as market participants evaluated newly imposed US tariffs on Canadian exports. US President Donald Trump outlined intentions to hike tariffs on Canadian automobiles and auto components to 50 percent starting on January 1, 2027. This announcement came shortly after US tariffs on US$28 billion of Canadian products took effect when bilateral negotiations collapsed.
Early session activity saw gains in software stocks alongside a retreat in hardware suppliers.
Investors stayed attentive to upcoming inflation metrics, NVIDIA's (NASDAQ:NVDA) financial results, and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole keynote speech slated for later in the week.
Technology shares faced headwinds from mounting political resistance to artificial intelligence (AI) data infrastructure. Axios reported on Sunday (August 23) about Texas Governor Greg Abbott's warning that data center companies have “dug their own grave” by failing to secure local community backing. Citing grid reliability concerns amidst public backlash, Abbott recently suspended state approvals for new data center power grid connections.
Both the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) and the Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) ended in negative territory.
Investors positioned themselves in the semiconductor space ahead of NVIDIA's earnings and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index data, helping to reverse a selloff on Tuesday (August 25).
NVIDIA broke its seven day losing streak, closing up 2.2 percent, while Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) rose after Raymond James upgraded the stock. Falling oil prices and bond yields also improved investor sentiment.
Wednesday’s (August 26) PCE reading came in hotter than expected, sending indexes lower. Tech was mixed, with NVIDIA falling in regular trading and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) leading gains among mega caps.
Meta has agreed to pay up to US$18 billion and make major changes to Facebook and Instagram to settle with US states that alleged the company built addictive products while it concealed the mental health risks from the public.
On Thursday (August 27), the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed higher again as NVIDIA rallied after beating estimates and issuing strong guidance. Chip-linked equities rose broadly.
Upbeat July quarter earnings from Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) also sparked a rally across beaten-down software stocks on Thursday, including ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW), Figma (NYSE:FIG) and Asana (NYSE:ASAN), signaling a shift away from fears over AI disruption and renewed investor confidence in traditional SaaS durability and growth.
Cybersecurity firms also surged, with CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) posting its best day on record and Okta (NASDAQ:OKTA) jumping — both companies beat earnings estimates on strong AI security demand. The rally came the same day that OpenAI and more than 100 other companies released an open letter warning that AI-driven cyberattacks are set to scale sharply in the coming months, adding to the sense of urgency around the sector.
The S&P 500's information technology group gained 3.4 percent as most other sectors declined.
On Friday (August 28), Warsh used his first Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium address to send a clearly hawkish signal on inflation, a message equity markets took in stride.
Warsh placed responsibility for inflation "squarely" on the central bank after 65 months of sustained inflation. With the PCE price index at 3.7 percent year-on-year and 4.1 percent on a six month basis — well above the Fed's 2 percent target — he set a high bar for policy changes, stating that the central bank must be confident inflation is rapidly returning to target before shifting course. However, he made no commitments on the future path of rates.
The S&P 500 dipped about 0.2 percent on the day, but finished the week 0.63 percent higher. The Nasdaq Composite ended approximately 0.5 percent lower on Friday, yet achieved a weekly gain of 1.29 percent.
3 tech stocks moving markets this week
This week's top tech stock movers, according to TradingView data, were:
1. CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD)
CrowdStrike led gains with a 14.38 percent improvement.
2. Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS)
Synopsys saw a boost of 10.47 percent for the week.
3. Fortinet (NASDAQ:FTNT)
CrowdStrike, Synopsys and Fortinet performance, August to 24 to 28, 2026.
Top tech news of the week
- Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) closed a major share placement to fund its AI investments on Wednesday, saying it will direct roughly 60 percent of proceeds toward expanding global computing infrastructure and 40 percent toward building hyperscale AI data centers and upgrading cloud infrastructure.
- Archer Aviation (NYSE:ACHR) and AEG agreed to build downtown Los Angeles’ first vertiport at LA LIVE, making Archer the district’s exclusive air taxi partner ahead of the LA28 Games.
- As memory expenses continue to rise, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) increased prices across its Echo, Fire TV, Kindle and eero product lines without issuing an official corporate announcement. Meanwhile, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is reportedly preparing to raise iPhone prices following earlier price hikes on select devices this year. The company also announced the September 9 release date of the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone Fold, Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 and AirPods 5.
- London-based data center developer Nscale aims to raise up to US$3 billion in a planned September US initial public offering, according to Bloomberg sources. Working with Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), the firm, which operates sites in Norway and West Virginia, has reported roughly US$51 billion in contracted revenue to prospective investors.
- Elon Musk said SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPXC) will launch its first orbital AI data center in the fourth quarter of 2027 using NVIDIA technology and will hit “significant scale” in 2028.
- SoftBank Group (TSE:9984,OTCPL:SFBQF) is planning a US$6.3 billion yen-denominated retail bond with a seven year maturity, with pricing around September 4. A SoftBank spokeswoman described proceeds as being for “AI-related investments and to repay previously issued bonds.” Concurrently, SoftBank is reportedly in ongoing discussions to purchase a controlling interest in humanoid robotics firm 1X Technologies, targeting a valuation near US$6 billion.
- Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) agreed to settle with US states for up to US$16.7 billion and agreed to enact new features on its platforms aimed at addressing risks to children. Meta also issued an open letter to TikTok and YouTube, calling on them to join the deal.
- NVIDIA is reportedly in talks to buy Hugging Face, the GitHub-like repository for open-source AI models, for US$12.9 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the agreement. Other reporting says Hugging Face had drawn interest from multiple bidders, including Salesforce, and that the talks remain unsigned; neither company has commented at this point in time.
- NVIDIA is also said to be discussing an equity investment in Perplexity that would value the AI search startup at more than US$30 billion. Separately, two individuals said their firms received price increase notifications of roughly 17 percent for NVIDIA Grace Blackwell 300 and Vera Rubin 200.
- OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and more than 100 other companies warned on Thursday that there are only months to prepare for AI-enabled cyberattacks, with hospitals, water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure at risk as AI makes sophisticated cyber capabilities cheaper and more accessible. To adapt, the group outlines several key steps: organizations must raise security standards and fix key weaknesses, while tech and cybersecurity firms need to develop accessible AI defense tools. Additionally, governments should enhance threat intelligence sharing and boost funding, and frontier AI companies must step up by providing top models and hands-on support during major cyber incidents.
Major tech stocks report earnings
NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)
NVIDIA beat revenue and profit estimates, prompting a rally in extended trading following an optimistic outlook for the upcoming year. Total revenue for the latest quarter came in at US$96.2 billion, up 18 percent from the prior quarter and up 106 percent year-on-year. Data center revenue was US$89 billion, and edge computing came in at US$7.2 billion.
GAAP net income was US$59.7 billion. Earnings per share was US$2.46, non-GAAP earnings per share $2.22. The company returned US$26.0 billion to shareholders in Q2 via buybacks and dividends, declared a US$0.25 per share dividend payable on October 1, and has US$99 billion left on its buyback authorization.
For its third fiscal quarter of 2027, the company projects revenue of approximately US$108 billion, excluding China data center compute revenue, alongside an expected gross margin of 74 percent.
Key announcements include full production of the Vera Rubin platform across major cloud providers, the new Vera CPU for AI agents, compute-financing partnerships mobilizing over US$500 billion with top financial firms, Blackwell dominating MLPerf Training 6.0 benchmarks and national AI infrastructure partnerships in Japan and Korea.
Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)
Salesforce's revenue for its second fiscal quarter of 2027 was US$11.3 billion, up 11 percent year-on-year (11 percent in constant currency). Current remaining performance obligation was US$33.5 billion. GAAP operating margin was 20.5 percent, while operating cashflow was US$1.3 billion and free cashflow was US$1.1 billion for the quarter, with trailing-12 month free cashflow at US$15.2 billion. Capital return was US$0.4 billion.
Total subscription and support revenue was US$10.8 billion, with agentforce apps revenue at US$7.2 billion.
Agentforce and data 360 annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached nearly US$3.9 billion, up over 210 percent year-on-year, including Informatica Cloud ARR. Agentforce ARR was US$1.5 billion, and data 360 ARR was US$2.4 billion.
Agentic work units, defined as one discrete task completed by an AI agent, surged to 3.2 billion delivered in the second quarter, up 97 percent quarter-on-quarter. Slack AWUs grew 133 percent quarter-on-quarter, while human app usage “remained strong,” framed as agents expanding usage rather than cannibalizing it.
Full-year revenue guidance for the 2027 fiscal year was raised to US$46.1 billion to US$46.4 billion, up from prior guidance of US$45.9 billion to US$46.2 billion. Earnings per share guidance was raised to US$16.67 to US$16.71.
Guidance explicitly includes anticipated contributions from the company's Contentful and Fin acquisitions, which Salesforce expects to close “in the coming weeks."
CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD)
CrowdStrike Holdings' total revenue for its second fiscal quarter of 2027 was US$1.47 billion, up 26 percent year-on-year from US$1.17 billion. Subscription revenue was US$1.4 billion, up 27 percent.
ARR grew 25 percent year-on-year to US$5.84 billion as of July 31, with net new ARR of US$332.8 million added in the quarter, a company record, up 51 percent year-on-year.
GAAP net income came in at US$5.3 million, with a GAAP loss from operations of US$33.2 million. Subscription gross margin was 78 percent GAAP and 81 percent non-GAAP. Operating cashflow hit a Q2 record of US$530.3 million, and free cashflow was a record US$377.4 million. Cash and equivalents stood at US$5.01 billion at the quarter's end.
For its third fiscal quarter, CrowdStrike is guiding total revenue of US$1,523.2 million to US$1,529.2 million, and non-GAAP earnings per share of US$0.31. It raised its full-year 2027 fiscal year guidance to total revenue of US$5,991.1 million to US$6,011.1 million, and raised its full-year net new ARR growth outlook by 630 basis points to 34 percent at the midpoint. CEO George Kurtz called it “the best quarter in CrowdStrike's history.”
Tech ETF performance
Tech exchange-traded funds (ETFs) track baskets of major tech stocks, meaning their performance helps investors gauge the overall performance of the niches they cover.
This week, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) finished the week 0.67 percent lower, while the Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXQ) advanced by 0.39 percent.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH) lost 0.08 percent.
Tech news to watch next week
Next week, investors will be watching for Canadian and US labor and inflation data for a read on the economy, alongside earnings from Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) and Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) on September 1, and Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) and Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) on September 2.
The Bank of Canada's rate decision will also land on September 2, with a hold at 2.25 percent as the base case.
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Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/meagen-seatter-23675b193/
Meagen moved to Vancouver in 2019 after splitting her time between Australia and Southeast Asia for three years. She worked simultaneously as a freelancer and childcare provider before landing her role as an Investment Market Content Specialist at the Investing News Network.
Meagen has studied marketing, developmental and cognitive psychology and anthropology, and honed her craft of writing at Langara College. She is currently pursuing a degree in psychology and linguistics. Meagen loves writing about the life science, cannabis, tech and psychedelics markets. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, cooking, traveling, doing anything outdoors and reading.
Meagen has studied marketing, developmental and cognitive psychology and anthropology, and honed her craft of writing at Langara College. She is currently pursuing a degree in psychology and linguistics. Meagen loves writing about the life science, cannabis, tech and psychedelics markets. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, cooking, traveling, doing anything outdoors and reading.