10 Things You Need to Know: A Jackson Hole-in-One

August 22, 2025
/ By Michael Comeau

Let's skip the preambles.

You know what everyone cares about this week:

1. Fed Chair Jerome Powell Hit a Jackson Hole-In-One

Traders were itching for a dovish Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium on Friday.

Their dreams came true.

Powell said “downside risks to employment are rising” and acknowledged that the economic picture “may warrant adjusting our policy stance.”

In other words, the Fed may cut if things get worse.

The result?

The SPX took off like a rocket to get within striking range of all-time highs.

And rate sensitive stocks like small caps, regional banks, and homebuilders outperformed, big time.

2. A September Rate Cut to Remember?

As of Friday afternoon, traders were pricing in an 89.3% probability of a September rate cut, according to the CME's FedWatch Tool.

This is up from 75% Thursday, and 58% one month ago.

This makes the next nonfarm payrolls report a critical one.

The July report was a mess because of large downward revisions to the May and June readings.

Another sloppy report could make traders gear up for an even more dovish Fed, and also a weaker economy.

3. Housing Stocks Knew All Along

On August 20, homebuilding stocks were ripping and I asked a simple question:

Could markets be sniffing out rate cuts already?

In hindsight, the answer is yes.

Because the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) has been gently gliding higher in the face of major concerns about the housing market.

So that's what the smart money has been up to…

4. Nvidia (NVDA) May Be in Danger.

Nvidia (NVDA) earnings are Wednesday after the close, and traders are bracing for an 11th straight earnings beat.

The stock is up 105% from the April lows, aided by big capex spending plans from the likes of Alphabet (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META).

However, post-earnings reactions are all over the place the past few quarters, so tread carefully if you're placing a bet:

With expectations so skewed to the upside, there is an element of danger here.

5. Nvidia's Not the Only One

Nvidia's not the only tech name reporting next week.

We also have:

MongoDB (MDB)
Crowdstrike (CRWD)
Snowflake (SNOW)
Dell (DELL
Marvell (MRVL)
Alibaba (BABA)

These names cover a decent spectrum of the tech universe, so keep 'em on your screen.

Here's the full calendar for the week:

6. Ethereum Is THE Momentum Superstar

Ethereum was up 13% on Friday, and is now up over 200% from the April lows, crushing Bitcoin:

The FT reported that the EU is exploring Ethereum and Solana as a basis for a digital euro.

And plenty of market strategists have been throwing out wild Ethereum price targets.

Standard Chartered recently upped its forecast to $7,500, and FundStrat's Tom Lee said today that “Ethereum is arguably the biggest macro trade for the next 10-15 years.”

Ethereum is arguably the biggest macro trade for the next 10-15 years
😍

Tickers: $BMNR $GRNY https://t.co/iDXtNmoMJY

— Thomas (Tom) Lee (not drummer) FSInsight.com (@fundstrat) August 22, 2025

And major Ethereum holder Bitmine Immersion Technologies (BMNR), of which Tom is chairman, popped 15%.

7. Cathie Wood's “Secret ETF” Is Kicking @$$

Cathie Wood's flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) is kicking butt, up 35% this year thanks to big bets on winners like Coinbase (COIN), Tempus AI (TEM), and Shopify (SHOP).

But she has an even bigger winner in the lesser-known Ark Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF), which as you'd think, is levered even more heavily to booming fintech stocks like Robinhood (HOOD) and SoFI (SOFI).