FEATURED

Five Things That Will Move Markets This Week

Markets reopen Monday after a short holiday weekend, and the calendar is lighter than it looks. But light doesn’t mean quiet.

Here’s what I’m watching across the next five trading days — and why a few of these dates matter more than the headline calendar suggests.

Monday: The First Data Point of Q3

Before anything else lands, the ISM Services PMI drops at 10 a.m. ET Monday — a release that got shuffled back a day because of the July 4 holiday. The May reading came in at 54.5, confirming the services side of the economy was still expanding. A softer June number would be meaningful. A softer result would support the argument that growth is slowing enough to keep the Fed patient. A hotter one reopens the rate hike conversation faster than anyone wants on the first trading day back.

This is where it gets interesting: the ISM number effectively sets the tone for everything else this week. If it surprises to the downside, the Wednesday Fed minutes read differently. If it’s firm, every subsequent data point gets filtered through a more hawkish lens.

Wednesday: The Document That Matters Most

Among the most notable releases this week are the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June meeting — the first with Kevin Warsh at the helm. The new Fed chair made clear he is no fan of forecasts from central bankers, as evidenced by his choice not to participate in the quarterly dot plot.

Warsh’s decision to skip the dot plot is not just a quirk. The unusually brief 130-word policy statement and the exclusion of forward guidance signals how Warsh wants the Fed to communicate — leaving more room for policy changes without being locked in.

The Fed’s dot plot from June showed nine members projecting at least one hike in 2026, while eight others projected rates to remain unchanged. There was still one dot projecting a rate cut. That split tells you exactly why Wednesday’s minutes are the most consequential document of the week. Nine of 18 officials projected that rates would end 2026 above the current 3.5% to 3.75% range. The minutes will be parsed for how strongly officials debated inflation, oil prices, and the timing of any hike.

What the minutes will not tell you is Warsh’s own lean. Warsh did not hint whether he was leaning toward hiking rates, but economists saw his message as hawkish. Market expectations around a potential rate hike pulled back this week, likely due to the soft jobs report and a continued decline in oil prices. Per Bloomberg rate probabilities, the probability of a rate hike at the July FOMC is down to 20% from 30% last week. The minutes will tell us how close the debate actually was.

Wednesday Night: An Early Consumer Check

A little before midnight on Wednesday, Wall Street gets its first real consumer data point of Q2 earnings season. Levi Strauss reports second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings on July 8. The consensus estimate for revenues is $1.52 billion, indicating a rise of 4.8% from the year-ago quarter. The consensus EPS estimate of $0.24 cents represents a rise of 9.1% from the prior year.

The company has an average trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 21.4%. That’s a meaningful habit of clearing the bar. But the number itself isn’t what matters here. Levi offers an early read on discretionary spending and demand for apparel. If the consumer is quietly rolling over, LEVI’s guidance language will say so before any of the major retailers do. Watch the tone of the call, not just the revenue line.

Thursday: The Real Earnings Event of the Week

PepsiCo and Delta report the same morning. Two very different stories, one shared question: is the consumer still holding up?

On PepsiCo: PepsiCo is slated to disclose its second-quarter results ahead of Thursday’s open. Analysts expect earnings of $2.21 per share, up 4.2% year over year, on revenue of $24 billion, representing 5.7% year-over-year growth. But one analyst is forecasting below-consensus earnings on expectations for weak results in the PepsiCo Foods North America segment, noting that scanner data suggest the North America business has yet to demonstrate the acceleration in consumption previously expected.

On Delta: Delta reports Q2 results on Friday July 10, before the open. Wall Street expects diluted EPS of $1.43, a 31.9% drop from $2.10 in the same quarter last year. The EPS decline looks alarming until you understand why. The Q1 earnings call presented a largely positive operational story — record revenue, strong unit revenue, margin improvement guidance — but those positives were tempered by a significant jet fuel shock adding more than $2 billion of quarterly expense. With oil having pulled back meaningfully since the Iran conflict peak, crude oil prices slipped to their lowest level since before the Iran war, taking some of the heat off airline fuel cost concerns and giving DAL stock a tailwind. If fuel costs land lower than feared, Delta’s beat could be sharper than the consensus implies. In the last 52 weeks, DAL stock has gained 82.9%, while the S&P 500 gained 20.8%. In 2026 alone, Delta is up nearly 30.6% year-to-date.

The Bigger Picture Hanging Over All of It

Bank of America reaffirmed a year-end price target of 7,100 for the S&P 500, representing a 5% drop from the week’s closing level, with analysts warning that speculation is hitting extreme levels. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs raised its S&P 500 forecast to 8,000, projecting 24% earnings-per-share growth for 2026, driven by AI infrastructure investment.

The gap between those two views — 7,100 versus 8,000 — is essentially the entire debate of the second half. And neither side gets resolved this week. What this week does is frame the question going into full earnings season, which opens properly on July 14 when the big banks report.

The semiconductor sector is worth watching even though no major chip company reports. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is coming off its best quarter ever, with an 88% advance in Q2, and just started Q3 with its worst two-day selloff in nearly a month. At the heart of the AI infrastructure trade are chip stocks, and the sector has been on fire for the first six months of 2026. However, Q3 started with the PHLX Semiconductor Index down nearly 7% in the first session. That combination — historic gains, violent reversal, and Fed minutes arriving mid-week — makes semiconductor positioning one of the most interesting reads in markets right now.

My honest take: the week feels quiet on paper. ISM, Fed minutes, two early earnings reports, one jobs-adjacent read. But after the best quarter for the S&P 500 since 2020, and with a Fed chair who just stripped out all forward guidance, every data point this week gets interpreted through a lens nobody fully understands yet. That’s what makes Wednesday the date worth circling.