--- title: "Here are two trades to make ahead of a critical week for markets as Nvidia results and Jackson Hole loom." type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/296774223.md" description: "Evercore ISI strategist Julian Emanuel advises two trades ahead of a volatile week featuring Nvidia earnings and Jackson Hole. For short-term hedging against small-cap sensitivity to bond yields, he recommends buying November $275 put options on the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM). For medium-term optimism in technology driven by AI, he suggests buying March $850 call options on the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ). Additionally, investors with AI-heavy portfolios may consider adding negative beta stocks like ExxonMobil or Johnson & Johnson for stability." datetime: "2026-08-24T10:40:36.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/296774223.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/296774223.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/296774223.md) generator: "portal-rs" --- # Here are two trades to make ahead of a critical week for markets as Nvidia results and Jackson Hole loom. By Jamie Chisholm There's a way to play more interest rate angst or an Nvidia-inspired tech bounce, says Evercore ISI Expect more volatility. So much for the dog days of summer! The penultimate week of August sparked into life with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's so-far forlorn attempt to suppress long-term bond yields that rattled traders. News of a fresh trade war with Canada and a sharply negative reaction to Walmart's (WMT) earnings is adding to the noise, according to Julian Emanuel, strategist at Evercore ISI. And, in a note published over the weekend, he says the new week is also replete with market-moving factors, including Bessent's plan for an "economic D-Day" for Iran, Nvidia's (NVDA) fiscal second-quarter earnings and guidance on Wednesday, and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's speech at Jackson Hole on Friday. "A lot of things could happen - and with 10 year yields near the very sensitive 4.75% level, the one thing this week won't be is silent or boring," Emanuel says. It comes at a sensitive time for stocks. Emanuel describes the Nasdaq 100 NDX - the big tech-heavy index - as the market's "sore spot" having moved from bull-market leader to current laggard. It's being weighed down by the reverberations from a shift among hyperscalers to negative free cash flow which is causing information technology credit spreads - a gauge of perceived risk, in chart below - to widen. Emanuel sees the coming sessions affecting the market potentially in two main ways. His base case continues to be that the Fed chair's challenges on inflation and bond yields, the upcoming midterm elections and the end of earnings season catalysts will prolong the near-term choppiness. This will be accentuated by small-cap stocks' particular sensitivity to moves in bond yields as well as the Nasdaq 100 weakness. However, it's possible that the "bondfire" subsides under the direction of Bessent and Warsh, says Emanuel. Or, more realistically, a positive share-price reaction to Nvidia earnings reinforces investors' faith in the robustness of the artificial-intelligence trade. Under those latter conditions, investors' fear of missing out "could begin early," he says, resulting in a situation of both rising stocks and rising bond yields that ended both the dot-com bubble and Japan's 1989 bull market. He says that short term investors should consider buying put options on the iShares Russell 2000 exchange-traded fund IWM of small-cap stocks. Put options give the buyer the right to sell the ETF at a particular price within a given time period, a negative bet, and Emanuel suggests buying the November 275 puts. For the medium term, Emanuel is more optimistic about technology, so favors buying call options on the Invesco QQQ Trust Series I QQQ, a proxy for the Nasdaq 100. Emanuel suggests buying the March 850 calls. Those QQQ calls will exploit the "runaway upside we expect before the 'Checkered Flag' is waved to end the 'AI Revolution' Bull Market race," Emanuel says. And for those who don't trade options, and who have what Emanuel calls "an AI-tilted portfolio", some stocks with negative beta could be added so that "you and your portfolio will sleep better at night." Negative beta stocks are those that tend to move in the opposite direction to the overall market. Emanual has previously suggested they included ExxonMobil (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), AbbVie (ABBV), Costco Wholesale (COST), Coca-Cola (KO), Philip Morris (PM), T-Mobile (TMUS), McDonald's (MCD), Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Progressive Corporation (PGR). The markets U.S. stock-index futures (ES00) (YM00) (NQ00) are mostly pointed lower even as Treasury yields BX:TMUBMUSD10Y dip. The dollar index DXY is higher as oil futures (CL.1) slip and gold futures (GC00) trade around $4,700 an ounce. Take control of your news. Make MarketWatch your preferred source on Google. The buzz The U.S. and Canada are in a fresh trade war after Ottawa rejected new demands from Washington and said it would retaliate against levies. U.S. steel stocks Nucor (NUE), Steel Dynamics (STLD) and Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) are higher. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration has launched an "economic D-Day" against Iran. Alibaba shares (HK:9988) (BABA) are lower after China's e-commerce and cloud group said it planned to raise HK$80bn ($10.2 billion) from a share placement to pay for AI investment. Samsung shares (KR:005930) had their worst day in three weeks, dragging other memory plays lower, as investors reacted to the chip-maker's $65 billion shareholder return plan. Softbank (JP:9984) said it plans to issue 1 trillion yen, equivalent to $6.3 billion, of yen-denominated retail bonds as it deepens multibillion-dollar commitments to OpenAI and related projects. The corporate highlight this week is expected to be AI chipmaker Nvidia's (NVDA) earnings, due after the market close on Wednesday. The Trump intervention that got the Justice Department off Live Nation's back. The chart A worry for the sweet-toothed among us. Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo, notes that traders' positioning in sugar futures (SB00) has seen a "dramatic reversal" of late. "In just three weeks, funds have moved from a 112k-contract net short to a 151k net long, a swing of more than 260k contracts," Olsen says. "The turnaround has been driven by El Niño-related weather concerns, rising price volatility, uncertainty over demand and supply prospects in India, as well as expectations that Brazilian mills may direct a larger share of cane towards sugar production," he adds. Top tickers Here were the most active stock-market tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m. Eastern. -Jamie Chisholm This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. 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