GS Equities Color Software Bounce

US EQUITIES COLOR: SOFTWARE BOUNCE Ariana Contessa · Mike Washington · Goldman Sachs · FICC & Equities Thu 13 Aug 2026, 5:06pm ET

S&P +65bps closing @ 7,799 w/ a MOC of $460mm to SELL. NDX +115bps @ 30,084, R2K +28bps 3,053, and Dow +13bps @ 53,839. 16,103bn shares traded across all US equity exchanges vs ytd daily avg of 19.211bn shares. VIX +7bps @ 14.56, WTI Crude -259bps @ $81.11, US 10YR -0.046bps @ 4.6467%, gold -135bps @ 4,348, dxy -1bps @ 99.96 and Bitcoin -28bps @ $63,375.

S&P hit a new ATH today on a combination of positive AI sentiment, benign PPI and CPI readings, and lower oil prices / rates relief. SNDK traded up +13% after noting at its investor day that they plan to return 100% of excess cash to shareholders + there were reports that Anthropic investors expect AI frontier lab to IPO at a valuation of $2T or more in October (FT). Elsewhere, Software (IGV +3%) is now green on the year (+40% from April lows) and now within 10% of ATHs. Our desk saw covering in ETF and Basket products here today. Our floor was a 3 on a 1-10 scale in terms of overall activity levels muted amidst summer trading. POST BELL: AMAT small beat on quarter BUT guides well above street and up 12.5% q/q.

DERIVS: Spot up vol up today as the August melt up persists. NDX fixed strike vols outperformed alongside spot. We saw the NDX spread to SPX widen slightly today after witnessing the most dramatic 10d compression in more than five years. SPX vol was bid while RUT was notably offered in the front end of the curve. Skew was crushed across the board as spot continues to trend higher. The desk likes short- dated SPY calls to play for a further rally with some Monday options being offered sub 8v — we saw several buyers going into the close. In the singles/thematic space, software ripped on the WDAY headlines with ATM options past Mar expiry down more than 20 points. Memory also ripped alongside software and the desk was active in select names in the space. The cost of short-dated gamma remains dampened with dealers long gamma here — the S&P implied move for tomorrow is 0.41%. (HT Gail Hafif)