News, data, news, and more data. All of it capable of moving the stock market. Next week marks the beginning of earnings season for the second quarter of 2026. JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Citigroup (C) all report on Tuesday. What does Wall Street expect? Very good things on earnings and potentially troubling news on inflation.
U.S. mortgage rates climbed to 6.49% this week, reversing last week’s drop, after President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran over, fueling concerns that renewed fighting may push up oil prices and keep borrowing costs elevated. The average for a 30-year, fixed loan rose from 6.43% a week earlier, Freddie Mac said in a statement Thursday. The rate was 6.72% a year ago.
I sold Nvidia (NVDA) out go my long-term 50 Stocks Portfolio on March 18 at a closing price of $180.40 My thinking then was that after a huge run Nvidia’s share had moved to an excessively optomistic valuation and it was time to give the shares a rest with expectations that the shares would correct and offer a lower rick re-entry price.
Turns out I was a “bit” early. Nvidia continued to climb until it hit an all-time high of $235.47. The shares closed at $196.93 on July 7. Now, though, I see the rebuying opportunity I was expecting. After losing roughly $1 trillion in market value in less than two months, Nvidia Corp.’s stock is the cheapest it’s been since before the AI boom kicked off and sent the shares into the stratosphere.
Financial markets increasingly believe inflation is coming down, but borrowing costs are headed higher. Rising bond yields are pointing to higher real interest rates even as inflation expectations moderate
.This means that the decline in oil prices has brought little relief to rate-sensitive sectors. Mortgage rates have bounced around near 6.6% in recent weeks, well above the 6% rate in late February before the attack on Iran.
Saudi Arabia made big reductions to its main crude oil price for buyers in Asia, selling barrels at a discount for the first time since it embarked on a price war in 2020, as a surge of global supply heightens competition to find buyers. State producer Saudi Aramco will lower Arab Light oil for next month by $11 a barrel to $1.50 below the regional benchmark, according to a price list published Monday. The last two times it sold the grade at a discount were during price wars in 2020 and 2015, while it marks the largest monthly reduction in official selling prices since at least 2000.
On June 17, in his press conference after the Federal Reserve’s meeting, new Fed chair Kevin Warsh said no more forward guidance on interest rate moves. He even, personally, made a point of not voting in the update of the Fed’s Dot Plot projections on interest rtes, inflation, and economic growth. Then on July 1, Warsh appeared on a panel with other central bank leaders at the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Portugal. He again declined to pre‑commit on the July rate decision. he also said inflation remains “too high.” But he noted that inflation risks have come down in recent weeks as inflation expectations and some energy‑related pressures eased. The financial markets certainly read these remarks as an indication–not forward guidance, of course–that the Fed would not raise interest rates at its July or September meetings. I think you’re entitled to ask What’s the difference between the old policy of forward guidance and the new policy of announcing forward conclusions based on trends picked out of the data, somehow? (I would note that neither Warsh or anybody else at the Federal Reserve KNOWS how quickly the inflationary pressures created by the Iran war will diminish.) I’ve got two answers to that question.
The U.S. economy added just 57,000 jobs in June, far below economists’ expectations of 100,000 and down from 129,000 jobs in May. The unemployment rate dipped slightly from 4.3% to 4.2%. Average hourly earnings growth for workers registered 3.5 percent on an annual basis in June. Pay raises are not keeping up with prices. Inflation is hovering around 4% on an annual basis after dropping to near 2% in 2024. How you think about this report depends on what part of the data you focus on.
Retail investors’ activity in the technology stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven” hit a four-year low in recent days after having been muted for months, according to Citigroup equity strategists. Retail traders were responsible for just 6% of total trading over the past five days through Friday, June 26, in the group that includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla., a team led by Stuart Kaiser wrote in a Sunday note. Volumes in these stocks over five-day periods frequently topped 20% of total trading in 2023 and 2024, and held mostly above 15% in 2025. The trend suggests conviction appears to be waning in a group that’s been a market favorite for years. Volume started to decline late last year and the drop persisted into 2026, Kaiser told Bloomberg in a Monday interview.
Investors must hedge any further S&P 500 rallies and brace for a potential “three-wave correction” in the next few months, according to the head of technical research at Bank of America Corp.
The S&P 500 Index has been on tear, rising nearly 17% since March lows, but the rally has been showing signs of exhaustion since the U.S. benchmark hit its most recent peak on June 2, BofA’s Paul Ciana wrote in a Thursday research note. He says the S&P 500 could drop as low as 6,850, a roughly 7.6% decline from current levels.
The index closed at 7,499 today, June 30.
“Summer roadmap is a three-wave correction,” Ciana wrote in the note. “The post-ceasefire rally is becoming more volatile as correction risks build,” Ciana said, Price action looks “stretched” and momentum is deteriorating, which should warrant a “defensive stance” for July through September. That’s not exactly the consensus on Wall Street.
The yen slid to touch 161.98 versus the dollar in New York trading on Monday, breaching the 161.95 mark touched in July 2024 during an earlier campaign by Japan to shore up the exchange rate.The last time the yen traded at this level it was barreling in the opposite direction, midway through a massive and years-long rally that followed a currency accord engineered by the United States. Not this time. Now the yen is sliding as Japan is on its way out of an economic funk that lasted for a generation. The currency weakness is boosting the profits of exporters, and in turn helping the nation’s stock market to record highs. But import costs are swelling, notably for oil and gas shipments priced in dollars. The ensuing inflation is hurting consumers, who are paying more for everything from food to electricity, and threatening to undermine the popularity of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government. And the drop is fueling worries about what a weak or simply unpredictable yen could mean for the global bond market and especially the market for U.S. Treasuries.
Shares of memory chip maker Micron Technology tread water during the regular trading session. And then soared on after-hours trading, rising 15.88%, as the company announced earnings and guidance that bear already heady expectations. Micron’s fiscal third quarter 2026 results showed record revenue of $41.46 billion, driven by surging AI memory demand. The company projects fourth quarter revenue to reach approximately $50 billion, significantly exceeding Wall Street expectations. For the third quarter Micron reported GAAP net income of $28.24 billion and a non-GAAP diluted EPS of $25.11. The question now is whether the micron results will send the entire market into a buy the dip rally.
Micron Technology (MU) is scheduled to report earnings after the close on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, and consensus expects a very strong AI‑driven number.
Will it be strong enough to stem the tech selling and stoke a buy on the dip rally?
