America lost jobs. Canada found them.
Week ending
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01
The month that turned a 72% year into a 35% one
Whale Rock's flagship fund fell 21.7% in July. It had been up 72.5% through June. One month took its year down to 35.1%, and it was not alone.
Coatue fell 8.3%, its worst month in more than a year, leaving it up 14.3% on the year. Marshall Wace's Eureka fund fell 6.9%. Millennium, which runs about $92 billion, fell 2.1%. These are not amateurs. They are some of the most resourced investors alive.
The cause was a sharp selloff in AI and semiconductor shares through July, the same trade that had made most of their gains in the first place.
Part of what made it worse is a story we ran last week. Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness finished July down 67%, and to meet its lenders' margin calls it sold the bulk of its public stock portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel. Forced selling on that scale pushes prices down for everyone else holding the same shares.
That is the part worth keeping. One fund's margin call is not a private event. It becomes the price everybody else gets. See last week's recap for how it started.
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02
The economy lost jobs and the market hit a record
On Friday the US was reported to have lost 23,000 jobs in July, when economists had expected roughly 80,000 to be added. The S&P 500 closed at a record high the same afternoon.
The logic is stranger to say than it is to follow. The Federal Reserve has been holding rates at 3.5% to 3.75% with inflation still above its target, and the market had been carrying some risk of a rise. A weak jobs report takes that risk off the table.
So the number was bad for the economy and good for the odds of cheaper money, and share prices trade the second one. Treasury yields fell as traders cut the odds of a hike.
This reflex is the single most useful thing a beginner can learn, and we have written it up twice: Why good news can crash a stock and Why interest rates move everything.
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03
Record closes on both sides of the border
The S&P 500 finished Friday at 7,757.64, a record, up about 3.6% on the week and its strongest week since April. Canada's TSX closed at a record too.
The Nasdaq rose about 5.2% on the week to close at 26,690.62. The Dow ended at 54,036.93.
The S&P/TSX Composite closed at a record 36,381, led by gold miners. Agnico Eagle rose 5.9% and Barrick 5%.
The miners rose for the same reason US shares did. Weaker US jobs data and softer energy prices cut the odds of a rate rise, and gold tends to do better when the return on simply holding cash falls. One data release, one chain of reasoning, three record closes.
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04
Oil spent the week trading a document nobody had signed
Talks on reopening the Strait of Hormuz opened on Monday and Brent fell 5.09% to $83.51, having been down more than 7% at one point. On Thursday Iran published its actual draft, it was restrictive, and oil jumped back.
The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow channel between Iran and Oman that a large share of the world's seaborne oil has to pass through. It has been effectively closed, which is why it was also in last week's recap, then with Brent pushing towards $90.
The draft under discussion would open it for 60 days with no transit fees, inbound ships using the channel nearest Iran and outbound ships using the Omani side. Iran wanted to exclude US and Israeli vessels and charge countries it considers hostile. The US wanted unrestricted transit. The two positions are still far apart.
Through all of it the strait did not actually reopen. Traffic remains close to non-existent and tankers are still being turned around. The price moved several dollars on the wording of a proposal, without one extra barrel reaching anybody.
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05
America lost 23,000 jobs. Canada added 75,000.
The two reports landed the same morning. Canada added about 75,000 jobs in July against expectations closer to 15,000, and unemployment fell to 6.4%, a two-year low.
Then the part that makes the pairing worth having. In the US, bad jobs news pushed shares up, because it removed the threat of a rate rise. In Canada, good jobs news pushed bank shares down, because it raised the possibility that the Bank of Canada might eventually have to tighten.
Same morning, same kind of data, opposite reactions. In both cases the market was not asking whether the news was good for the country. It was asking what the news meant for interest rates.
Worth keeping the enthusiasm in proportion. RBC's Nathan Janzen said plainly that the labour market is not yet strong, and Desjardins does not expect a Bank of Canada rise before 2027. Markets put the odds of a hold at the September meeting at about 96%.
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06
Unemployment fell because people stopped looking
Almost every headline said the US unemployment rate fell, to 4.1% from 4.2%. It did. It fell because 264,000 people left the workforce altogether, not because anybody was hired.
The labour force participation rate dropped to 61.4%, its lowest in five years. Set the pandemic aside and it is the lowest in roughly five decades.
The unemployment rate only counts people who are either working or actively looking for work. Someone who gives up looking stops being counted as unemployed, and the rate improves. It is the one number in economics that can get better precisely because things got worse.
The rest of the report agreed with the gloomier reading. Payrolls fell 23,000. May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000, which puts the average over the past year at about 34,000 jobs a month. Government employment fell 53,000, most of it local education, and leisure and hospitality fell 40,000. Healthcare added 22,000.
The economist Mark Zandi put it flatly: the economy is struggling, and the falling participation rate reflects discouraged workers rather than a strong labour market. Read the headline, then always read what is underneath it.
Figures cover the week ending 9 August 2026 and are sourced from public reporting. Educational content, not financial advice. A new recap goes up every week, and on @wealthstratum.