U.S. stocks finished mixed Friday after the August jobs report revived the possibility of a September rate hike. The S&P 500 fell -0.4% and Dow lost -0.5%, while the Nasdaq 100 gained +0.2% and Russell 2000 rose +0.3%.

Payrolls jumped 162,000 versus 53,000 expected, pushing the 2-year Treasury yield to 4.34%. Technology led the sector board, but Tesla and Lululemon delivered two of the day’s ugliest drops.

Stocktwits attention clustered around Bloom Energy after its S&P 500 addition sent shares up +13%. Astera Labs and Cheniere stayed busy after getting left off the list.

Today's Briefing: Powered by Stocktwits Community API.

Bloom Energy, which builds on-site fuel-cell power systems for data centers and other large customers, finally got its S&P 500 invitation Friday. The addition takes effect before the September 21 open.

The RIP: $BE gained +7.4% during Friday’s session, then climbed another +5.8% after hours to $267.60. The stock has nearly tripled this year, lifting Bloom’s market value above $74B.

Illumina and Everpure are also joining the index. Molson Coors, Builders FirstSource, and Trade Desk are coming out. Astera Labs and Cheniere Energy were heavily discussed candidates but missed the cut.

Index funds now need to buy Bloom shares before the change takes effect. That adds a mechanical buyer to a rally already powered by AI data centers scrambling for electricity. Plenty of good news is in the stock after a +191% year, so the next two weeks could get loud.

Tesla began paid Cybercab rides in Austin on Thursday using two-seat vehicles without steering wheels, pedals, or mirrors. The event was closed to the public, Muskie wasn’t there, and overall the Street was not very impressed.

Then the kicker: On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit of Tesla’s claim that the vehicles comply with federal safety standards.

The RIP: $TSLA ( ▼ 5.92% ) fell 5.9% to $354.08, erasing Thursday’s launch rally. The audit covers roughly 1,000 Cybercabs and will examine the technical data behind Tesla’s self-certification. Basically, car companies tend to self regulate and certify their work, but in this case, the car has no steering wheel.

Tesla put the cars on public roads without waiting for regulators to rewrite standards built around human drivers. That could accelerate the rollout, but the audit puts a federal question mark over the product at the center of Elon Musk’s autonomous-driving pitch.

The Community Read: The latest $TSLA room is neutral, debate the Cybercab audit risk ->

SanDisk led a broad memory-stock rally Friday as traders returned to the companies supplying storage and high-bandwidth memory for AI data centers. Micron and SK Hynix joined the move after reports that Micron plans to roughly double its HBM capacity by year-end.

The RIP: $SNDK jumped 11.9%, $SKHY climbed 8.1%, and $MU gained 6.1%. SanDisk’s latest quarterly data-center revenue reached roughly $3B, double the prior quarter, while Micron reportedly targets about 100,000 HBM wafers per month by year-end.

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💰 Lululemon stock plunges 20% on disappointing earnings and outlook

Lululemon reported another rough quarter Thursday as the athletic-apparel retailer’s revenue and comparable sales declined. A large tariff refund made the profit figures look considerably healthier than the underlying business.

The RIP: $LULU cratered 17.4% Friday. Revenue fell 4% to $2.42B, comparable sales dropped 9%, and EPS slipped to $2.92. A $134.5M tariff refund added 560 basis points to gross margin and $0.86 to EPS.

Oil and chips shared the lead this week, while shoppers and rate-sensitive groups paid the bill.

$XLE ( ▼ 0.87% ) Energy +2.2%: Renewed U.S.-Iran fighting pushed WTI up +9.8% for the week, its strongest run since mid-July. $XOM jumped +2.7% Monday after U.S. strikes hit Iranian sites near the Strait of Hormuz. Crude near $91 kept every escalation headline attached to the trade.

$XLK ( ▲ 0.7% ) Technology +0.9%: Chips salvaged the week after bond yields backed off midweek. $SNDK rose +11.8%, $MU gained +6.0%, and $NVDA added fuel by saying it would buy Hugging Face for nearly $13B. Tech still carried bearish 33/100 sentiment on high message volume, so the rebound outran the crowd.

$XLU ( ▲ 0.12% ) Utilities +0.8%: The group caught a bid as the 10-year yield eased from a near three-year high, then held green after Friday's hot jobs report sent rates back up. $NEE got company-specific help when shareholders approved the stock issuance needed for its Dominion Energy merger.

$XLY ( ▼ 1.33% ) Consumer Discretionary -2.0%: The consumer finally blinked. $LULU cratered -17.6% Friday after declining revenue and another annual profit forecast cut, adding a clean earnings casualty to the sector's weekly loss. Heavyweight $AMZN also fell -1.9% Tuesday as oil and yields climbed.

Watch into next week: The market is closed Monday. Thursday's producer price index and Friday's consumer price index will either confirm Friday's rate scare or cool it, with oil already feeding the inflation argument.`

The U.S. labor market woke back up in August, and traders immediately raised the odds of a September rate hike. Strong hiring removed one reason for the Fed to stay on hold, but next Friday’s inflation report still gets the final word.

The RIP: Payrolls grew 162,000 versus 53,000 expected, and unemployment held at 4.1%. June and July were revised to 31,000 and 21,000 jobs from 20,000 and -23,000. Restaurants added 59,000 workers, while local government education added 42,000. The figures came from the Labor Department.

“We don’t have a problem in the labor market,” Joe Brusuelas, RSM chief economist, said Friday.

The rebound was broad enough to quiet fears that June and July marked the start of another hiring slump. Still, restaurants and local schools accounted for more than half of the gain, and both followed weak stretches. That makes August healthier, but a little less whopping than the headline suggests.

Traders pushed the implied chance of a September hike above 60%, up from roughly 50% before the report. The Fed now has the labor-market room to tighten if inflation stays hot.

Pay remains the sore spot. Average hourly earnings rose 3.1% from last year, trailing July’s 3.4% inflation rate. August CPI arrives September 11, five days before the Fed’s September 16 decision. Stronger employment cleared one hurdle. Inflation gets the deciding vote.

69.2K WATCHERS · NEUTRAL · NORMAL ACTIVITY

Oracle climbed after Morgan Stanley nudged its target to $210 from $207 and Bernstein reiterated Outperform ahead of Sept. 10 earnings. The company guided for Q1 revenue growth of +27% to +29% and cloud growth of +58% to +64%. That is a lot of growth, and an even bigger capital bill.

29.4K WATCHERS · BEARISH · LOW ACTIVITY

POET Technologies climbed after the photonics supplier said it will exhibit at CIOE 2026 and present high-power, multi-wavelength laser sources for AI interconnects at IFOC. The presentation is set for Sept. 8. Traders got a date and a product demo, but no new customer order.

Bearish 🐻 | Bullish 🐮 | It’s Complicated 😵‍💫

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