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The week ahead is light on economic data. The entire week falls inside the Fed’s blackout period ahead of the July 28-29 FOMC meeting, so there’s no Fedspeak to parse before the committee revisits the current 3.50%-3.75% funds rate range. Odds are that the committee’s statement will remain hawkish\u00a0but postpone\u00a0any rate hiking.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the earnings reporting season is jam-packed this week. And of course, the fireworks show has resumed in the latest Middle East conflict. One major downside of earnings is that they might only meet analysts’ already high expectations. Another is that hyperscalers might scale back their guidance for capital spending (and\/or returns from such spending), or announce unforeseen delays in building data centers. <\/p>\n
Wednesday stacks up as the busiest day of the earnings reporting week. GE Vernova, Texas Instruments, Alphabet, IBM,\u00a0and Tesla all report\u00a0that day. Intel reports\u00a0on\u00a0Thursday.\u00a0The consensus\u00a0of analysts\u2019 estimates\u00a0now implies\u00a0Q2-2026 operating EPS\u00a0growth for S&P 500 companies\u00a0of\u00a022.9% y\/y, up from 21.6%\u00a0a week earlier\u00a0(chart).<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-90.png\")
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The risk in the oil market is excessive complacency about the impact of a reescalation of the Gulf War on oil prices. US forces carried out a fifth consecutive night of strikes against Iran this week, according to US Central Command, keeping oil prices elevated and pressuring borrowing costs.\u00a0The\u00a0price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil\u00a0settled Friday at $82.49 a barrel and Brent\u00a0ended last week\u00a0at\u00a0$88.10, both up over 10%\u00a0for\u00a0the week (chart).<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gateway-242.png\")
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Here are the key economic releases most likely to shape investors’ thinking this week:<\/p>\n
(1) Employment. ADP’s weekly National Employment Report Pulse (Tue) has shown hiring slowing for three straight readings, with private employers adding just 19,750 jobs per week on average in the four weeks through June 27 (chart). Still, this remains comfortably above early 2026 levels.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-70.png\")
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Initial unemployment insurance claims (Thu) fell 8,000 to 208,000 for the week ended July 11, a 10-week low, with the four-week average down to 214,250 and continuing claims at 1.805 million (chart). <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-71.png\")
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(2) Composite Economic Indicators. June’s Index of Composite Economic Indicators probably remained flat (chart). It may be misleadingly weak given the recent surge in S&P 500 forward earnings.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gateway-243.png\")
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(3) ECB Policy.\u00a0The\u00a0European Central Bank\u00a0meets Thursday and is widely expected to hold its deposit rate at 2.25% following June’s hike, the first since 2023 (chart). The more interesting question is guidance. Financial markets currently price roughly 70%-80% odds of a September hike, given the oil-driven inflation risk from the Iran conflict, so Lagarde’s press conference tone matters more than the decision itself. It’s a heavy week for global data more broadly, with Canada’s CPI (Mon), UK jobs and CPI (Tue\/Wed), and Japan’s CPI and flash PMIs across the Eurozone, Japan, and the UK (Fri) all on the calendar.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/image-73.png\")
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\ud83d\udca1<\/p>\n
Join the discussion with Ed below! To leave comments or questions, log in to the Yardeni QuickTakes website and post them at the end of the QuickTakes article. Paid members’ contributions may be featured in our segment, “Ed Answers Your Questions”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The week ahead is light on economic data. The entire week falls inside the Fed’s blackout period ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-548844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}