What Happened Last Week
- Tech Stocks Fell: Unease over higher CapEx guidance from Alphabet and tensions in the Middle East weighed on tech stocks.
- Underlying Strength: Despite tech’s underperformance, most S&P 500 Index sectors advanced last week.
- Pause in Hostilities: The U.S. and Iran paused strikes over the weekend as optimism builds for a more durable agreement.
What We’re Watching This Week
- Earnings Week Three: About 35% of the S&P 500 and 4 of the world’s largest tech stocks will report in the biggest earnings week of the summer.
- Middle East: Global energy prices will continue to react to news flow from the region.
- Economic Data: Aside from a Fed meeting, investors will have Gross Domestic Product (GDP) print and Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation report to digest.
Investment Management Team’s Views
The recent surge in oil prices and renewed concern about AI spending made last week feel worse than the headline market performance suggested. The Nasdaq-100 Index led the decline as investors reacted cautiously to otherwise strong technology earnings, reflecting the increasingly high bar facing the AI trade. Higher CapEx guidance from Alphabet suggests that mega-cap tech companies are planning further AI spending, but investors continue to demand evidence of a return on these costly investments. Beneath the surface, however, eight of the eleven S&P 500 Index sectors advanced, with energy leading as crude moved above $90 per barrel on renewed hostilities in the Middle East. The weekend pause in strikes between the U.S. and Iran has eased some of that pressure, prompting a positive early response from both equities and bonds.
The rise in interest rates sets up a more consequential Fed meeting than seemed likely just a few weeks ago. Market pricing briefly assigned meaningful odds to a rate hike during last week’s oil price spike as higher energy prices revived inflation concerns, though we continue to expect the Fed to leave policy unchanged. Warsh’s limited guidance has encouraged speculation around the decision, and several dissents in favor of tightening would not surprise us. More important than the vote itself will be any signal from the Fed about the inflation risks posed by energy prices, although we also expect communication to be limited, as Chair Warsh implied during his debut meeting. Growth remains resilient, but inflation is likely to remain the primary constraint on policy in the months ahead.
The week ahead will test both the Fed’s reaction function and the durability of the AI investment cycle. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Apple report during the busiest stretch of earnings season. This will place particular attention on hyperscaler capital spending, margins, and evidence that AI investment is translating into revenue growth. Investors continue to evaluate the progress of the AI buildout and the flow of capital between tech companies across the AI value chain, which has induced volatility in tech stocks lately. With expectations elevated, strong headline results may not be enough to elicit a positive reaction in shares. The market will focus on earnings quality and whether management teams can justify another leg higher in AI spending. The Fed’s decision will also arrive alongside updates on second-quarter GDP, PCE inflation, and labor costs, which will offer investors a fuller view of the growth-inflation trade-off.