Wall St rises on the day but falls for the week; bond yields and Iran in focus

Wall St rises on the day but falls for the week; bond yields and Iran in focus

By Sinéad Carew and Avinash P

Fri August 21, 2026  

Investors took a bit of a breather today and there was some old-fashioned bargain hunting as all the indexes went steadily straight up despite bond yields continuing to rise and the war with no end in sight. Trump has threatened severe economic sanctions against Iran and Iran has countered by vowing a “devastating” response if it happens. None of this seemed to sour investors and the light volume suggested “wait-and-see” and there’s a lot to wait-and see. 

Next week comes Nvidia, Intuit, Salesforce and CrowdStrike all with their Q2’s. Also coming is PCE and CPI for inflation gauges, and Warsh’s speech at Jackson Hole. There was some good news today including the strongest growth in two years in the services sector and a big increase in general business activity to counter the slowing growth in manufacturing. Oil continues to rise. But today’s gains were not enough to offset the week’s losses with both tech indexes snapping winning streaks and the Dow with its second consecutive weekly loss.  Volume came in at 14.9 billion, still well below the 16.6 average. 

DJ: 52,759.21  -703.84        NAS: 26,067.17  -263.92        S&P: 7,641.16  -66.82           8/20

DJ: 53,277.01  +517.80       NAS: 26,180.46  +113.29       S&P: 7,674.37  +33.21           8/21

Fri 8-21-26 4:02 pm Wall St rises on the day but falls for the week; bond yields and Iran in focus | Reuters