Our latest monthly bear and bull survey shows that 60.5% of respondents are still optimistic about the market going into August, though this is down slightly from 66% last month. The S&P 500 has risen in nine of the past 12 months as well as nine of the past 10 months — surpassing $5.5K in July. Will August end this streak? It depends. NvidiaNVDA

, which makes up nearly a third of the S&P 500, has the power to either boost or drag down the market. But it’s not just Nvidia at play — tech companies struggling to produce results from their massive AI investments or a cooling economy could also sway the market’s direction.

• The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 has fallen nearly 10% since Jul. 10 — driven by wild swings from Nvidia this week and a shift from Big Tech to smaller stocks, with the Russell 2000 up 6% in the same period.
• The US unemployment rate is steadily rising, restaurants and consumer goods companies are reporting weak consumer spending, and now, manufacturing is also showing signs of slowing.

Rate-cut revival: If anything can keep the rally going, it’s a rate cut… or three. After this week’s Fed meeting, where Jerome Powell mentioned a “rate cut could be on the table” for September, bond traders have priced in three rate cuts of 0.25 percentage points each in the remaining Fed meetings this year. Still, some remain cautious. Bloomberg reports that Bank of America’s Savita Subramanian believes the S&P 500 has peaked this year after a nearly 15% hike — but says “a full-fledged bear market is unlikely.”