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Aug 2026
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Listen to the latest insights from Dr. David Kelly, Chief Global Strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management to help prepare you for the week ahead.
In a generally upbeat Jackson Hole speech on Friday, Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh asserted that “labor markets are consistent with full employment”. Given that the current unemployment rate, at 4.1%, is the lowest it’s been in 18 months and is also lower than it has been 88% of the time over the past 50 years, it is hard to argue with the Chairman’s assessment.
Money was tight in our early married years. We bought a house we couldn’t afford, purchased a car we couldn’t afford and had all the expenses attendant on the raising of two young boys. However, as we wandered the local mall gazing at all the other things we couldn’t afford, we were always willing to stop into Godiva to get chocolate squares. Godiva was, of course, more expensive than Hershey bars. But no one was going to go broke buying chocolate squares – it just wasn’t a big enough item to feature in our budgetary woes.
The summer of 2026 has been dominated by the AI boom. Some fear that AI is advancing too quickly for thoughtful regulation. Others worry that end-user revenues will lag too far behind massive capital spending and fast-growing debt. From an economic perspective, AI is pure momentum, generating huge profit gains, adding to investment spending, boosting upper-income consumer spending via a wealth effect and coinciding with very solid gains in productivity.
No one liked the defendant. That much was clear. But when the jury retired to consider their verdict, they hardly knew where to start. The case was so confusing and the judge’s instructions hardly seemed adequate. “Perhaps”, suggested the foreman, “we should start with a list of questions…”
The earnings season has started with a blast. As of Friday morning, 49 of the S&P500 companies had reported second-quarter earnings, with 85% beating expectations and the index on track for a blockbuster 23% year-over-year gain for the quarter. According to FactSet, analysts now expect S&P500 operating earnings to reach $340.74 for 2026 as a whole, up 24% from 2025, following strong back-to-back gains of 10% and 13% in 2024 and 2025 respectively.
Alan Greenspan, who served as Fed Chairman for almost 20 years, died last month at the age of 100. He was a talented and faithful public servant who guided U.S. monetary policy through the stock market crash of 1987, the boom years of the 1990s and the dot-com bubble. He was thoughtful and witty in his public comments. However, he seemed to regard a lack of clarity as almost a virtue. He inherited a Fed that had always been reticent to communicate and he largely maintained that cloak of secrecy.
Despite very average economic performance, consumer sentiment remains at extraordinarily low levels. While there are many interesting aspects to this phenomenon, one is of particular relevance to investors. As we show on page 32 of the Guide to the Markets, peaks and troughs in consumer sentiment have, for many years, been powerful contra-indicators of stock market performance over the subsequent 12 months. However, does this relationship still hold, if the reason for weak sentiment is beyond the realm of a rational assessment of broad economic conditions?
In the pantheon of running injuries, there is a well-established hierarchy. A recreational runner, finishing any marathon, or exerting themselves at half that distance, can expect to come down with delayed onset muscle soreness, otherwise known as DOMS. Starting from barely a twinge at the finish line, the pain rises in intensity over the next few days, with your quads telling you firmly that your running days are over. But then it fades and a week later you should be running like a spring lamb again.
Last week, as a frothy stock market continued to zigzag across a high plateau, two events occurred with significant implications for the macroeconomic outlook. First, the President signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, potentially bringing the Iran war to a close. Second, Kevin Warsh presided over his first meeting as Fed Chairman, resulting in a slightly more hawkish tilt to monetary policy in the short run and the promise of significant reform in the long run.
Last Wednesday’s CPI report, while not a surprise, still showed a year-over-year inflation rate of 4.2% - higher than in any month since April, 2023. For investors, this raises a number of questions. First, is this the peak for U.S. inflation and, if it is, how fast will inflation fall from here? Second, are we looking at the right inflation rate, anyway, given differences between CPI and PCE deflators, headline and core measures and the new Fed Chairman’s preference for trimmed mean and median readings?
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