September 2, 2026
After a strong August, investors are beginning to question whether the market can continue advancing or whether recent gains have made it more vulnerable to a setback.
In a Seeking Alpha article covering Wednesday’s market session, Michael Landsberg, Chief Investment Officer at Landsberg Bennett Private Wealth Management, argued that the answer may depend less on geopolitical headlines and more on what happens to corporate earnings.
“August was a very strong month for stocks, and after this run, investors are now looking to stress test it and figure out what could derail it.”
Markets rebounded Wednesday following the previous session’s technology-driven decline, while investors continued to monitor developments involving Iran, oil prices, employment data, and elevated Treasury yields.
For Michael, however, the central question remains straightforward: Are businesses continuing to grow their earnings?
Oil prices and developments involving Iran have recently commanded significant market attention.
Those events can certainly affect investor sentiment and create short-term volatility. Michael, however, cautioned against allowing geopolitical developments to overshadow what he views as the more important long-term driver of equity markets.
“While the stock market is currently focused on Iran and the oil price spike, we would ignore this geopolitical and manmade noise and continue to focus attention on the corporate earnings growth picture, which is what ultimately drives stocks higher.”
The distinction is important.
A geopolitical event can move markets rapidly, but its longer-term significance depends on whether it ultimately changes economic activity, inflation, interest rates, or corporate profitability.
Without that transmission into fundamentals, short-term volatility does not necessarily alter the underlying investment case.
Michael’s comment places corporate earnings at the center of the market outlook.
Stocks ultimately represent ownership in businesses. Over longer periods, the ability of those businesses to generate and grow profits can matter more than the headlines dominating an individual trading session.
That does not mean valuations, interest rates, or geopolitical risks should be ignored. Instead, Michael’s perspective suggests separating events that create temporary market reactions from developments capable of changing the earnings trajectory.
For investors, the more useful questions may therefore be:
Are earnings expectations continuing to improve?
Are businesses maintaining margins and revenue growth?
Are current valuations supported by future earnings potential?
Those questions can provide more useful context than attempting to react to every daily market move.
While Michael emphasized earnings, the broader market environment also includes another important consideration: elevated Treasury yields.
Long-term government bond yields remain relatively high, creating greater competition for investor capital.
When investors can receive comparatively attractive yields from government securities, stocks must offer sufficient earnings growth and potential return to compensate investors for taking additional risk.
That makes strong corporate earnings increasingly important.
If earnings continue growing, higher valuations may have more fundamental support. If earnings expectations begin weakening while bond yields remain elevated, the relationship between risk and potential return becomes less favorable.
In that sense, earnings and interest rates should not necessarily be viewed as competing narratives. Higher yields simply increase the importance of companies delivering the growth investors are paying for.
Wednesday’s economic data showed private-sector employment increasing by 38,000 jobs in August, below expectations and representing the slowest pace of private job creation since January.
That moderation adds another piece to the economic picture, but one employment report alone does not determine the direction of the economy or markets.
Investors will need to assess whether slower hiring represents a gradual normalization of the labor market or the beginning of a more substantial deterioration.
For equity investors, the eventual impact again comes back to fundamentals. A stable but slower labor market may have limited implications for corporate earnings. A sharper slowdown affecting consumer spending and business activity would require a different assessment.
Wednesday’s recovery was relatively broad, with 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finishing higher.
That breadth is noteworthy following a session in which technology stocks had weighed on the broader market.
One-day performance does not establish a trend, but broader participation can indicate that investors are finding opportunities beyond a narrow group of stocks.
Combined with continued earnings growth, broader participation could provide a healthier foundation for the market than a rally dependent on only a handful of highly weighted businesses.
Markets will continue to react to headlines.
Geopolitical conflicts, oil prices, employment reports, Treasury yields, and Federal Reserve expectations can create substantial short-term movement. The more important question for long-term investors is whether those developments materially change the outlook for businesses and their earnings.
We believe that distinction becomes especially valuable after a strong market advance.
Rather than trying to predict every geopolitical development or daily market reaction, investors can evaluate whether earnings remain supportive, whether valuations are justified by future growth, and whether individual investments continue to fit within the overall portfolio.
Strong markets should still be stress-tested. But the more relevant test may not be whether the next headline causes stocks to fall.
It is whether the underlying earnings story remains intact when the noise fades.
More of this at Wall Street ends higher on Dell, Nvidia boost and a let up in oil prices, yields
Landsberg Bennett is a group comprised of investment professionals registered with Hightower Advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment adviser. Some investment professionals may also be registered with Hightower Securities, LLC (member FINRA and SIPC). Advisory services are offered through Hightower Advisors, LLC. Securities are offered through Hightower Securities, LLC.
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