Wall Street indexes slip as oil prices rise, retail results awaited

Wall Street indexes slip as oil prices rise, retail results awaited

By Sinéad Carew and Avinash P

Mon August 17, 2026  

Though it’s unclear exactly what happened at the noon hour, it was at that time that all three indexes dove into the red with all three closing with greater losses than Friday. The Dow took the brunt of it as the price of oil rising, with Iran still at a standstill. Some of it is just fence-sitting as investors still digest the weak retail sales and job numbers from July and anxiously awaiting new retail sales in the next few days from giants Walmart and Home Depot.  

Once again, experts are raising the specter of concerns about AI spending but ironically the chip index rose 1.6%. However, this was more than offset by a decline in the software index of 2.8%. The biggest wait-and-see is Nvidia whose Q2 report is due next week. Volume remains well below the 16.95 average, closing today at 14.74 billion. 

DJ: 53,732.41  -107.58        NAS: 26,729.16  -73.86        S&P: 7,785.76  -13.23             8/14

DJ: 53,459.78  -272.63        NAS: 26,644.91  -84.25        S&P: 7,745.06  -40.70             8/17

Mon 8-17-26 4:42 pm Wall Street indexes slip as oil prices rise, retail results awaited | Reuters