Veteran portfolio manager Nancy Tengler said U.S. equities can keep climbing even with the S&P 500 near record highs, laying out a second-half playbook centered on AI infrastructure, mispriced growth stocks trading like value, cybersecurity, and catch-up opportunities in financials and consumer discretionary. Speaking on TheStreet’s Aug. 12 podcast with Caroline Woods, the Laffer Tengler Investments CEO and CIO said she has shifted capital toward names tied to power, data centers, and electrification, including Quanta Services, GE Vernova, Williams, and Deere. She also argued that Nvidia and Amazon belong in a value-oriented portfolio under current market conditions, pointing to Nvidia’s 16x to 18x forward earnings multiple, 60% to 80% earnings growth, and a PEG ratio of 0.25. Tengler said her firm also owns Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike, with a preference for CrowdStrike, while treating Palantir, Tesla, and SpaceX as high-volatility “narrative” stocks. On the other side of the ledger, she said she would avoid Meta, staples, most utilities, and REITs. Her main risks for the bull market are a break in credit markets and a return of inflation, while her base case is for the S&P 500 to finish the year up 12% to 15%, rather than 20% to 25%.

U.S. equities ended higher after softer inflation data helped push the S&P 500 to another record close, with the Nasdaq and Dow also advancing. July producer prices cooled to 4.7% year over year from 5.5% in June, while the market lifted the odds of the Federal Reserve holding rates steady in September to around 65%. Even so, the long end of the Treasury market sent a different signal: the 30-year bond auction cleared at 5.216%, the highest since 2001, and indirect bidding weakened, pointing to growing concern over fiscal supply and term premium. Sector leadership was narrow. SanDisk surged after issuing aggressive long-term targets at its 2026 investor day, lifting Western Digital, SK Hynix, Seagate, Micron and the Roundhill storage ETF. Workday also jumped on a Reuters report that Silver Lake had held acquisition talks for months. In contrast, optical networking names and parts of the AI hardware trade reversed lower, while Cisco fell despite record quarterly revenue as investors focused on margin concerns. Oil prices retreated after both the IEA and OPEC lowered demand expectations, and Donald Trump signed a proclamation imposing 10% to 100% tariffs on imported drones and related parts on national security grounds.

Cisco is set to report fourth-quarter results and full-year fiscal 2026 numbers after the U.S. market close on Aug. 12, 2026, with Wall Street looking for about $1.17 in earnings per share and roughly $16.83 billion in revenue. The larger issue going into the print is not whether the company can clear quarterly consensus, but how quickly its expanding artificial intelligence order book turns into recognized sales. Cisco has lifted its full-year AI infrastructure order expectation from $5 billion to about $9 billion, yet its AI infrastructure revenue outlook only moved from $3 billion to $4 billion. Against full-year revenue guidance of $62.8 billion to $63.0 billion, that implies AI revenue of only around 6% this fiscal year. Third-quarter results had already pushed the bar higher, with record revenue, stronger adjusted EPS, and product order growth across enterprise, public sector, service provider, and cloud customers. Investors are now likely to focus on fiscal 2027 guidance, AI order updates, gross margin trends, recurring software and subscription growth, backlog commentary, and any management discussion of tariff effects. The gap between bookings and revenue recognition remains the central issue in this report.

Gate market data shows Cisco's US-listed shares fell more than 5% in pre-market trading, according to a ChainCatcher flash report.

U.S. stocks closed mixed after July consumer inflation data came in as expected, easing immediate concern that price pressures were reaccelerating. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.04% for a third straight loss, while the S&P 500 rose 0.26% and the Nasdaq gained 0.54%. According to the report, July CPI rose 0.1% month over month and 3.4% year over year, while core CPI increased 0.2% on the month and 2.5% on the year, with the core annual reading marking its slowest pace since March 2021. Money markets subsequently cut the probability of a September rate hike to 40%, with odds of no change climbing to about 60%. The market’s leadership also shifted sharply. Capital moved out of traditional software and some mega-cap tech names and into AI infrastructure, semiconductors, storage and optical communications. NEBIUS jumped 34.14%, CoreWeave rose 19.28%, Super Micro Computer climbed 19.02% and Lumentum added 13.63%. The report also highlighted continued strength in gold and silver, a pullback in crude after a recent surge, and mounting pressure from the U.S. fiscal deficit and interest burden. Investors are now watching July PPI, upcoming 13F filings and earnings from several technology and semiconductor companies for the next directional cues.

Cisco Systems gave investors its first full-year revenue view for artificial intelligence, but the forecast did not satisfy the market. According to the company’s earnings release, AI-related sales are expected to account for about 10% of Cisco’s total revenue in fiscal 2027, while full-year revenue is projected at $72.2 billion to $73.4 billion. Some analysts viewed that target as too conservative, especially because Cisco had already booked roughly $4 billion in AI-related orders in the quarter through July 25. After the results were released, Cisco shares fell about 4% in after-hours trading. Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins said AI-related revenue for fiscal 2026 was about $4 billion, while orders topped $9 billion. He said large AI orders are often placed well ahead of revenue recognition, creating a time lag between bookings and reported sales. For the same period, Cisco reported fourth-quarter revenue of $17.3 billion, up 18% from a year earlier and above the $16.8 billion expected by the market. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.22, also ahead of the $1.17 consensus estimate, according to Bloomberg.

On August 13, Cisco published its fiscal fourth-quarter results. Revenue reached $17.3 billion, ahead of the $16.85 billion analysts had estimated. For fiscal 2027, management guided adjusted earnings per share of $5.05 to $5.11, versus a market consensus of $4.84. Cisco also said AI orders from hyperscale cloud service providers totaled $4 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter. Following the release, shares traded down 4.1% in after-hours trading, last seen at $118.80, per BIT (bit.com) market data.

U.S. stocks closed lower for a second straight session as investors waited for July CPI data, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.34%, the S&P 500 off 0.32%, and the Nasdaq falling 0.6%. The market tone turned cautious as a standoff around the Strait of Hormuz kept oil elevated and Federal Reserve officials delivered fresh hawkish comments, leaving traders roughly split on whether the Fed could raise rates in September or stay on hold. At the same time, leadership inside technology stocks continued to fracture. Mega-cap names broadly weighed on indexes, while semiconductors, storage, optical networking, AI cloud infrastructure, and alternative asset managers outperformed. Strong earnings and guidance from CoreWeave, Lumentum, and Super Micro Computer fueled gains across AI infrastructure names, while Nvidia steadied after Jensen Huang addressed concerns tied to a newly announced $500 billion compute financing platform. The session also highlighted rising overlap between AI infrastructure and financial markets. CME plans to launch H100 and B200 GPU compute futures on Oct. 5, while lawmakers in Washington stepped up pressure on OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta over AI development. Investors are now watching CPI, energy reports from EIA, OPEC, and IEA, earnings from Cisco, Coherent, and Cerebras, and Google’s upcoming product event for the next move across rates, oil, and AI-linked equities.