Stock Market Today, Aug. 26: Stocks Edge Lower As Market Digests Meta Ruling and Awaits Nvidia’s Earnings

Slipped 0.04% to 7,675, the S&P 500 (^GSPC -0.02%) drifted lower alongside a 0.08% decline to 26,130 for the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC -0.08%), while a 0.21% drop to 53,464 for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.21%) snapped its three-day winning streak.

Today’s biggest moves

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF +35.67%) shares soared 36% after the retailer raised its full-year guidance on a second-quarter earnings beat.

Elsewhere, Meta Platforms (META +1.07%) saw volatile trading after settling a legal dispute for 17 billion. In similar, but unrelated news, Snap Inc. (SNAP -8.45%) saw its shares decline 9% as Pennsylvania’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the company due to its addictive features and child safety concerns — much like Meta’s settlement laid out.

What this means for investors

Meta’s $17 billion settlement with dozens of states over its child safety concerns stole the headlines today, but its stock was largely flat, as the market had already somewhat anticipated this possibility. Meta agreed to certain terms for users under 18 across both Facebook and Instagram, including:

• a default two-hour max
• a six-hour night-time block
• limits on like counts
• more robust age checks
• removal of users under 13
• parental requirement to remove time-related maxes
• higher response rates on harmful content review

One interesting wrinkle in the settlement is that if TikTok and YouTube join in on the agreement, Meta’s teenage time limit would drop to one hour.

The other major headline today is that Nvidia (NVDA -1.59%) is reporting earnings after the bell right now. Currently, shares are up 5% as of 5:45 p.m. ET after the semiconductor behemoth reported sales and EPS growth of 106% and 128%, respectively. Nvidia also raised its sales guidance for the third quarter to 89% growth.

Speaking to the power of these incredible results, CEO and founder Jensen Huang explained, “The AI infrastructure build-out is at full steam. Vera Rubin, now in full production, was built to power exactly this moment.”