EDITOR'S NOTE

In perhaps the most critical week of the earnings season, stocks held on to the remarkable gains they've achieved since the coronavirus shutdowns were just beginning.

The Nasdaq Composite ended the week up 3.69% as the Big Tech stocks that have carried the rally posted remarkable earnings. The S&P 500 was up 1.73% for the week and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down by a mere 0.16%.

For the month, the S&P 500 jumped 5.5% for its best July since 2010. The Nasdaq added 6.8% for the month, its 4th positive month in a row.

CNBC's senior markets commentator Michael Santoli puts the tech-led run this way:

"The gaudy profits reported Thursday by Apple, Amazon, Facebook and, to a lesser degree, Alphabet, showed there was more than reckless speculation that drove those four stocks plus Microsoft up to a stunning 22% weighting in the S&P 500."

"The market got it just right piling into the dominant tech stocks and treating equities and the economy as a winner-take-most proposition," Santoli added.

Now what will August bring? 

About one-fifth of companies in the S&P 500 report earnings in the week ahead, but they're not likely to have much effect on the market, writes CNBC's Patti Domm.

“The earnings story is over,” said Barry Knapp, managing partner and director of research at Ironside Macroeconomics, adding that from here we're more vulnerable to politics.

Indeed, what will have greater impact on the market is how Democrats and Republicans come together on the next fiscal stimulus bill, and how they decide the fate of the $600 a week unemployment supplement that was set to expire July 31, Domm writes.

Then there's the dry season of late summer.

“August has traditionally been a challenging month for investors,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. "The market is entering what historically has been the worst two months for stocks."

Finally, in this edition of Weekend Brief, CNBC's Maggie Fitzgerald takes a look at the Baron Global Advantage Retail Fund, a 47-stock portfolio that has returned more than 43% this year.

The fund's manager Alex Umansky is all about investing in disruption and Covid-19 certainly provided that.  "It is absolutely critical to understand whether the companies than you're investing in are going to benefit from the disruptive change or if their competitive advantages will be disintermediated," he explained.

Pro subscribers can read about the fund here.

Thanks for reading Weekend Brief.  Email your thoughts to EveningBrief@nbcuni.com or follow me on Twitter @tellittoal.

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MICHAEL SANTOLI'S MARKET COLUMN

THE WEEK AHEAD

ACTIVIST SPOTLIGHT

YOUR WEEKEND BRIEFING