Twelve Trillion Dollars of Answers
Thirty S&P 500 companies worth a combined $12.55 trillion report this week. The Fed is silent, the data calendar is empty, and oil isn't cooperating. Everything hinges on Wednesday night.
On Wednesday, thirty companies in the S&P 500 worth a combined $12.55 trillion report second-quarter results. On Thursday, 153 companies report. The Federal Reserve is in blackout. The economic calendar is close to empty. For one week, earnings are the only thing setting prices.
That is a rare and slightly uncomfortable configuration.
Monday's session
Stocks erased early gains. The S&P 500 fell 0.19% to 7,443.28, the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.05% to 25,508.07, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 307.16 points, or 0.59%, to 51,839.26, dragged by a more than 2% decline in Apple.
The pattern of the day was instructive: an early recovery in semiconductors was overwhelmed by a bounce in crude and a spike in Treasury yields. Energy was the clear winner in the S&P 500, technology managed modest gains, and the defensive complex — health care, utilities, REITs and staples — gave back recent gains.
The United States completed its ninth consecutive day of strikes on Iran overnight. Sentiment improved by midmorning in London after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei raised hopes of a diplomatic settlement — a reminder of how thin the diplomatic premium currently is, when a single sentence from a spokesman is enough to move a global tape.
European markets were subdued: France's CAC 40 fell 0.11%, Germany's DAX slipped 0.16%, the FTSE 100 lost 0.3%, and Italy's FTSE MIB hovered just below flat.
July has been a painful month for AI and momentum investors. The infrastructure trade has unwound roughly 20% from its highs, and strong results from Samsung, ASML and TSMC have not stopped it.
The month so farIntel keeps cutting
Intel is planning a further round of layoffs as part of what the company describes as a broader strategy. More than 5,000 U.S. employees have been affected so far, concentrated in California and Oregon with additional cuts in Arizona and Texas. A company spokesperson said the data center group is aligning its organisation to ensure the right roles and skills are in place. Intel reports on Thursday.
The week's structure
| Day | What lands |
|---|---|
| Monday | Leading Indicators (June); Halliburton, 3M, KeyCorp, General Motors, Danaher, Northrop Grumman |
| Wednesday | Alphabet, Tesla, IBM, ServiceNow, Texas Instruments, AT&T, Philip Morris, CME, GE Vernova |
| Thursday | ECB decision; Intel, T-Mobile, RTX, Union Pacific, Thermo Fisher, Newmont, Nasdaq Inc. |
| Thursday 8:30 | GDP, PCE, personal income, consumer spending, jobless claims |
The European Central Bank meets Thursday. Having hiked at its prior meeting, consensus strongly favours a hold.
Then the FOMC on July 28–29, with the committee already in its blackout period. No change in rates is expected. Following a CPI print at 3.5% and a June payrolls figure of 57,000, the case for holding is stronger than it has been all year — and the interest is entirely in whether the language softens from June's hawkish dot plot.
What to watch
- Wednesday night is the week. Alphabet's cloud growth and capex guidance are the two numbers that determine whether the semiconductor drawdown is a reset or the start of something worse.
- Energy leadership is a warning, not a rally. XLE topping the board while defensives sell off reflects the oil bid, not risk appetite.
- Yields are doing damage quietly. A spike in the long end alongside $90-handle crude squeezes margins from both directions, and small caps feel it first.
- No Fed, no data. With both in blackout, single earnings reports will carry more index-level weight than they normally would.