The S&P 500 returned a solid 4% during the month of August.  This easily outpaced the return of my Portfolio, which only managed about a 1% gain during the month.

Having 5 of my 6 largest holdings being in the red in August did my Portfolio in.  It’s too bad, as my Portfolio was outpacing the S&P 500 for the year through the end of July.

Q2 earnings season has essentially drawn to a close now.  Strong earnings have propped up the stock market despite various concerns that might otherwise have brought it down.

Analysts cite historical valuation metrics that suggest the stock market is currently overvalued.  It’s believed that the high prices leave the stock market sensitive to economic headwinds such as inflation, shifting interest rates, and the ever-growing federal debt.

For now, the stock market is holding up, but one can’t help but think a pullback is in order, especially given the strong run up the market has had over the past 3 years.  We’ll see what happens.

Note – the monthly percentages noted below are through 8/28/26.

The Consumer Discretionary (8.2%), Information Technology (6.8%) and Energy (6.2%) sectors helped carry the S&P 500 to its 4% gain in August.  Meanwhile, Utilities (-6.9%), Industrials (-3.4%) and Real Estate (-3.0%) weighed on the index.

Year-To-Date (YTD), the Energy sector continues to lead the index with a 38.5% gain thus far.  However, Information Technology is packing a bigger punch (due to its weighting) despite a 2nd-best 22.1% gain.  Consumer Discretionary and Communication Services used their good Augusts to finally creep into the green for 2026.  Unfortunately for Utilities, its poor month knocked the sector into the red for the year, leaving it as the only sector down in 2026 (not by much though, just -0.4%).

After August, the S&P 500 still has a very good 12.65% gain for 2026, becoming 13.5% once we include reinvested dividends.

Only five of my Top 10 holdings were in the green this month.  Sadly, these were nearly the smallest five stocks in my Top 10.  Here’s hoping for a rebound in September.

I’ll cover my usual items in this month’s Portfolio Thoughts post…

• Price Movement – I’ll look at my top advancers and decliners in my Portfolio during the past month.
• Top 10 Review – I’ll update my Top 10 Portfolio stocks and how they changed rank this past month.
• Weightings – I’ll examine the sector weightings within my Portfolio and let you know where I’ve made progress with regard to getting into my preferred weighting ranges.
• Watch List – I’ll share which stocks I’m looking at for possible purchase or sale in the event I decide to shuffle up my holdings.

Let’s check out my Portfolio Thoughts for August 2026…

 

Price Movement

Note – my price changes cover closing prices from 7/24/26 to 8/28/26.

My individual Portfolio stocks recorded a slightly positive gainer/decliner ratio in August.  The ratio ended up as a decent 4:3.  The best part though… the gains tended to be larger in magnitude than those of the declines, leading to a solidly green performance tilt.  Of my 56 holdings, 32 holdings climbed in price, while the remaining 24 dropped.

Here were the stocks with the biggest moves to the upside and downside…

 

Of my 32 stocks that rose in price in August, one of them topped 30% – a stellar effort.  Another three stocks exceeded 20%, too.  Add another half dozen that surpassed 10% (the usual threshold I monitor for).  Finally, tack on ten stocks that gained at least 5% as well.  The positive contributions were widespread.

My top gainers in August were:

• Microsoft (MSFT), surging 34.54%
• Accenture (ACN), launching 29.00%
• Intuit (INTU), leaping 20.83%
• Amdocs Ltd. (DOX), jumping 20.75%
• Amgen (AMGN), ascending 14.99%

 

One of the top gainers this month appeared on last month’s top gainers list as well… ACN.  After falling swiftly to start the year, then bottoming out in June, ACN has been on the mend the past couple of months.

Notice that the first four stocks on my top gainers list are from the Information Technology sector (MSFT, ACN, INTU, DOX).  More specifically, they are all software-related stocks.   Nearly all my software stocks got absolutely punished in the first half of 2026, so this August rebound is a welcome relief.

MSFT was my top gainer in August, posting a massive 34.5% gain.  The company’s fiscal Q4 earning smashed expectations thanks to impressive AI and cloud growth.  MSFT reached a new 52-week high during the past month.

Notching a 2nd-straight monthly double-digit gain was ACN.  Lots more of this will be needed to recover all of this year’s remaining losses (-29.3%).  Investors seem to be re-assessing the last earnings report, thinking it wasn’t as bad as initially thought.

The recovery for INTU accelerated this month with the stock’s better than 20% rise.  However, INTU is still down over 46% YTD.  INTU climbed in price ahead of its earnings report late in August, but was clipped when the earnings report suggested slower growth in 2027.

The last of the software-related names to experience a nice price hike in August for me was DOX.  A solid quarterly earnings report helped sustain a valuation recovery that was already in motion.  While still down nearly 21% YTD, DOX is on the mend.

The last of my top gainers for August was AMGN.  The stock gained nearly 15%, jumping on the heels of its Q2 earnings report and strong full-year earnings guidance.  AMGN has risen in price for 3 consecutive months, reaching new 52-week and all-time highs.

Note – no sectors in my Portfolio had all their holdings in the green this month.

 

Of my 24 stocks that slid in price, just two declined by more than 10%.  However, there were another nine that fell by at least 5%.  So, there were a fair number of decliners all in all, but I was happy that they were overshadowed by my stocks in the green.

My worst decliners in August were…

• Cummins (CMI), tanking 15.02%
• Enbridge (ENB), sinking 11.71%
• Caterpillar (CAT), tumbling 9.96%
• NextEra Energy (NEE), retreating 8.84%
• NNN REIT (NNN), falling 7.51%

 

No stock from the top gainers list last month appeared on my top decliners list this month.  No need to give up those gains!

However, I did have one repeat offender on my top decliner list this month – CAT.  CAT was 3rd on my top decliner list both last month and this month.

A pair of former high-flying Industrials stocks made my top decliners list in August.  In the top decliner spot was CMI.  The stock sank over 15%, accelerating the loss it posted last month.  Not too far behind, with nearly a 10% drop, was CAT.  This month’s percentage loss for CAT was actually a bit smaller than its one from last month.  Both CMI and CAT benefited from data center power demand earlier in 2026 and there has been some profit-taking over the past couple of months.

It’s been a while since I recall seeing ENB on my top decliners list.  But a monthly 11.7% decline can certainly lead to that.  ENB had somewhat disappointing 2nd quarter earnings.  Net income and earnings fell.  Profit margins got squeezed some as capital expenditures were elevated and a heavy debt load was managed.

NEE slipped over 8.8% in August to land on my top decliners list.  The stock price retreat was driven by regulatory headwinds to the company’s huge merger with Dominion Energy.  Also, defensive Utilities names such as NEE are out of favor these days with investors looking for more growth.

My last top decliner was NNN.  This REIT pulled back about 7.5% in August after reaching an all-time high in July.  Another triple net lease REIT in my Portfolio, Realty Income (O), sank about 5.5% in August, too.  Thus, other damage occurred in the Real Estate sector outside of NNN.

Note – one sector in my Portfolio had all of its holdings in the red this month… Real Estate (3).  Each of my holdings in this sector declined in the -3.2% to -7.5% range.

 

Top 10 Review

Movement inside my Top 10 remained elevated in August.  For the 2nd-straight month, seven of the ten stocks changed position by month’s end.

The same stocks were in the Top 10 this month compared to last month.  They just shuffled themselves around.

The largest move up was just one spot, while the largest drop was two spots.

Half of my Top 10 posted a gain in August, while the other half declined.  Unfortunately, my largest stocks tended to be the losers, leading to a decline in Portfolio value for those stocks within my Top 10.

 

Broadcom (AVGO) maintained its #1 spot in my rankings, despite a minor 3.4% drop in August.  AVGO is nearly three times as big as my next largest holding.

Holding onto the #2 ranking was Aflac (AFL).  AFL lost over 7.2% in August, its first loss in five months, but was able to keep its place in the rankings.

Swapping spots at #3 and #4 were AbbVie (ABBV) and Caterpillar (CAT).  ABBV finished with the higher ranking due to losing less during August.

Another pair of stocks swapped places at #5 and #6.  This time it was Visa (V) passing Qualcomm (QCOM) to finish in the higher place.  V posted a strong 7.3% gain during the month and has now gained in 5 consecutive months.

Moving up one spot to finish at #7 was Fastenal (FAST).  A 5.9% gain allowed for the ascension.  FAST touched a new 52-week high around mid-August.

Also climbing one spot was BlackRock (BLK).  BLK used a solid 10.3% August rise to lay claim to the #8 spot.  BLK was my best-performing Financial stock in August.

Slipping two spots in the rankings and settling at #9 was JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM).  Despite a 1.2% gain for the month, JPM slid in the rankings.  JPM has risen in price for 3 straight months now.

Holding steady in my rankings at #10 was Johnson & Johnson (JNJ).  JNJ gained about 1.8% to stay within my Top 10.  Make it 4 consecutive months of gains for JNJ.

 

 

Still lurking outside my Top 10 (and hoping to get in) are Union Pacific (UNP) and RPM International (RPM).  These are really the only two stocks close enough to enter.

 

From the table above, my Top 10 holdings now comprise 43.41% of my Portfolio value.  This is a decrease of 0.43 percentage points compared to last month.  Big weighting drops from the stocks in the top half of my Top 10 account for the decline.  All of my Top 10 stocks now have at least a 3% weighting, with JNJ barely qualifying.

As for the dividend weighting of my Top 10, it now stands at 26.71%.  This is an increase of 0.30 percentage points compared to last month.  Small, across-the-board weighting gains by each of my Top 10 stocks that occurred when I sold Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) in early August account for the uptick.

 

Sector Weightings

 

In general, for Sector Diversification, I target being within +/-3 percentage points of the sector weightings of the S&P 500.  For SuperSector Diversification, I target being within +/-5 percentage points.

The “Weight Diff.” column shows which sectors sit outside my preferred weighting ranges.  If I’m overweight a sector, it’s shaded green.  If I’m underweight a sector, it’s shaded red.  If I’m within my target weighting range, then no shading exists.

Another month has passed and there’s been no change to number of sectors outside my preferred weighting range.  It remains at 6.  This includes 3 overweight sectors and 3 underweight sectors in my Portfolio.  Industrials remains my most overweight sector and Information Technology remains my most underweight sector.

Sadly, all 6 of these sectors are now farther off from getting into my preferred weighting range than when the month started.  I don’t think that’s ever happened.

All my underweight sectors are now more underweight.  It was only a marginal difference in Communication Services, but things were worse in Consumer Discretionary (due to my under-performance), and worst in Information Technology.  The weighting difference in Information Technology went south when I sold my Skyworks Solutions (SWKS) position.

All my overweight sectors are now more overweight, too.  My weighting differences in Financials, Healthcare and Industrials all got worse due to my sector stocks performing better than those of the S&P 500 index.  I guess I can live with that.

Yet again, the sector in which I regressed most was Information Technology.  My SWKS sale was the reason.  I went from being 14.60% underweight to being 15.72% underweight.

As for dividend weightings, the biggest change was in Information Technology as well (and for the same reason).  This subtracted 1.27 percentage points (from 13.18% to 11.91%).  I still have four sectors that provide between 11% and 16% of my total dividend income.  These include Healthcare, Financials, Industrials & Information Technology.  Real Estate is my only sector providing less than 4% of my dividend income, and barely so.

 

As always, I’ll keep all my sector weightings in mind as I continue to adjust my Portfolio, and my watchlist.

 

Watch List

Since my Portfolio dividends are now used for living expenses (since I’m no longer working), I don’t expect to purchase stocks very often.  Yet, I could choose to sell an under-performing stock and invest in a potentially better one.  Thus, I plan to keep looking for opportunities and keeping my watchlist up-to-date.

I did make one move in August (I sold SWKS, which I’ve yet to post about).  I’ve now got the sales proceeds to reinvest.  Thus, my watchlist should come in handy in September.

 

Within my Portfolio, here are a few stocks that I’m watching for possible additions…

VICI Properties (VICI) is currently my smallest position.  It needs to grow or exit the Portfolio.  The stock currently trades under $26.  My position could use an infusion of about $1K.

Despite its recent uptick, I’m still interested in adding Intuit (INTU), my 2nd-smallest position.  The stock currently trades around $358 and I can afford to add a share at this level.

Hershey Co. (HSY) is trading at $179.  A dip below $175 would drop my cost basis slightly, but I’d prefer to lock in a price below $170, so I’ll keep watching.

I’m still eyeballing Nike (NKE).  The stock has dipped below $40 and I could see adding some shares here.

The decline from NextEra Energy (NEE) has brought the stock onto my radar.  The investor grief surrounding the Dominion Energy merger has depressed the price to under $82… to the point where I’d be interested in adding.

Meta Platforms (META) has risen in the past month and now trades around $575.  However, that hasn’t taken the stock off my radar.  A price below my last buy at ~$587 would be good.  I might use any shares I buy at this level to eventually replace some of my higher cost basis shares I bought at $655 when I initiated my META position.

 

Considering stocks I might sell…

T. Rowe Price Group (TROW) has fallen a bit from the $120 I saw last month.  Should the price recover and surpass $129, I might trim a few shares to reduce my exposure to the stock.

I’ve given some thought to eliminating my UGI Corp. (UGI) position.  Despite some good price appreciation since I’ve owned it, the company hasn’t raised its dividend since 2023.  I’d prefer to move my investment to a location where dividend growth can be expected.

 

As for non-Portfolio stocks that I’m watching…

None at this time.  I remained focused inside my Portfolio instead, where there’s plenty of optimization to do.

 

Thoughts?

Do you anticipate the stock market giving up its 2026 gains by the end of the year?  Please share your thoughts!