Financial insights for the week ending July 17, 2026
For the week ending July 17th, 2026, markets pulled back across the board in a rough few sessions, with technology leading the drag down. The S&P 500 finished down 1.6%. The Nasdaq dropped 2.9%. The Dow ticked lower 0.9%. Finally, the small-cap Russell 2000 finished down 0.6%.
If there was one culprit this week, it was probably semiconductors, which got hit about as hard as they have since the tariff scare last spring. Some fresh doubt crept in about whether the AI names had simply run too far, Netflix put out a soft revenue outlook, and a Chinese startup almost nobody had heard of a month ago claimed an AI breakthrough that rattled the whole group. IBM piled on midweek, pre-announcing a rough quarter and dropping about 25% in a single day, its worst since 1987, after telling investors that clients had pulled spending away from its software and toward AI hardware. This didn't feel like investors running for the exits, though. It felt more like they finally decided a handful of the AI winners had gotten too expensive and started trimming. The selling was worse overseas, with Japan's market down 4% and chip-heavy Taiwan and Korea falling even harder. What makes the week odd is that the news was largely good. June inflation came in cooler than expected, off 0.4% on the month and reading 3.5% over the past year, mostly because gas prices fell back once the Iran ceasefire took some pressure off oil. Bank earnings were very good. All five of the giants beat, JPMorgan booked the biggest quarterly profit in the history of American banking, and Goldman reported in its best quarter ever, though at this point investors practically expect the banks to beat. Retail sales were slightly soft, but that was mostly cheaper gas pulling down the dollars spent at the pump, strip that out and the consumer still looks fine. Lastly, Chair Warsh stood in front of Congress for the first time. While his comments lasted nearly an hour, he provided essentially no new information investors were not already aware of. In short, the data were good, the earnings were even better, but the market didn't care.
Next week, economic data is quiet but investors will be focused on corporate earnings. The mega-cap tech names start reporting, with Alphabet and Tesla both up Wednesday, the first of the Magnificent Seven to go, alongside Texas Instruments and AT&T. IBM also puts out its full results Wednesday, filling in the detail behind the preliminary warning that hammered it this week. General Motors and 3M report Tuesday, then Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and Intel close things out Thursday. After this past week, the thing to watch won't be the earnings beat, it'll be the overall sentiment these companies share on AI and data-center spending, since that's the ultimate wildcard in this AI-fueled run. The Fed meets the week after, with the decision due the 29th. Two weeks ago traders were flirting with the idea of a rate hike. After this week's soft inflation print, the odds of them just sitting still are back up near 90%.
This week's tip runs right alongside last week's, because most of those account break-ins you read about start the same quiet way. One password leaks in some company's data breach you had nothing to do with. The trouble was never that one password. It's the five other places you happened to use the same one. That's why using a different password everywhere matters far more than making any single one impossibly clever. It's the one habit we'd fix first, especially on your bank, Charles Schwab login, and external retirement account logins. Turn on two-factor authentication since that second step blocks the great majority of break-in attempts even when a password does get loose; and if a dozen different logins sounds like a nightmare to keep straight, a good password manager will carry them for you!
Enjoy your day! Come back next Saturday for our latest commentary. We are here to answer any of your financial questions.