Summing Up the Week’s Events
From Peter Boockvar:
Positives,
1) From the NY Fed Consumer Expectations Survey for June, “Labor market expectations improved, with job-finding expectations increasing and job-loss expectations and expectations about the unemployment rate declining. Spending growth expectations were unchanged. Respondents were more optimistic about their future household financial situations, while expectations about future credit availability deteriorated slightly.”
2) Initial jobless claims were 215k vs 217k last week. The 4 week average of 219k is down from 223k last week. Continuing claims were little changed at 1.814mm vs 1.806mm in the week before.
3) In response to rising truck freight prices, “Preliminary North American net orders for Class 8 heavy duty trucks surged in June, driven by soaring freight rates and a rapidly recovering trucking market, according to FTR and ACT Research.”
4) From Delta: “We delivered $1.4 billion in pre-tax profit while absorbing the highest quarterly fuel expense in our history, reflecting broad demand strength, growing brand preference and momentum across our diversified revenue base…Main cabin unit revenue grew double digits, marking the second consecutive quarter of positive main cabin growth.”
5) From Levi Strauss: “Our consumer continues to be resilient. And has reflected another quarter of strong results. It’s broad based across channels, geographies and categories. So, you think of the beat, it’s geographically, it came from the US and Asia. Europe was as expected. It came from wholesale and came from women…we are seeing strength across value, core and premium.”
6) From MSC Industrial Direct: “The growth of our installed base is showing the benefits of an improving macro environment that should result in higher sales across existing locations, an effect which we commonly refer to as the coiled spring. We started to see early signs of this in the third quarter, with daily sales trends on a per unit basis showing volume improvement…we are seeing further signs of an industrial recovery taking shape with positive IP readings across most of our top manufacturing end markets and five consecutive months of MBI readings above 50.” They raised prices by 7.2% y/o/y by the way. “Tungsten is still the largest driver of our inflation, and I think we’re not done.” Tungsten prices are up 500%.
7) Potentially positive for Japanese assets and the yen was this very notable comment from the Japanese finance minister who said, “We would like to pursue measures that would encourage pension funds, including GPIF, to make substantially greater investments in Japanese financial assets.” JGB yields fell sharply and stocks and the yen both rallied.
8) Base wage growth in Japan in May remained strong, up 3% y/o/y.
9) Inflation stats out of China were about as expected. PPI rose 4.1% y/o/y while CPI was higher by 1% ex food and energy.
10) German factory orders in May exceeded expectations and April was revised to less negative. Industrial production and export growth also both beat expectations.
Negatives,
1) In the June NY Fed Consumer Expectations Survey, one yr inflation expectations rose to 3.7% from 3.5% even as expectations for gasoline prices fell to the lowest since 2022. Higher expectations for health care costs and rents offset the gas decline, along with a lower outlook for food and college tuition costs.
2) The June ISM services index at 54 was spot on with expectations but down slightly from the 54.5 print seen in May and around the half yr average of 54.3. The Business Activity component fell 2.3 pts m/o/m to 55.4 and below the 6 month average of 56.7. Industry breadth softened in the month with 14 sectors seeing growth vs 17 in May. Four industries saw a contraction in their business vs one in May.
3) Existing home sales in June (likely covering contracts signed March thru May, and thus the key spring season) totaled 4.09mm, still bouncing along 30 yr lows. Prices rose 1.8% y/o/y with months’ supply at 4.6. The NAR said “The back-and-forth in monthly home sales activity, driven by mild fluctuations in mortgage rates, shows how sensitive home buyers are to affordability conditions…Without consistent gains in inventory, home prices can accelerate. It is critical to introduce more supply to the market to widen the opportunity for homeownership.”
4) The Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker for June was up 3.6% y/o/y vs 3.5% in May and 3.6% in April. While fine in absolute terms, it’s growing no faster than the rate of inflation so consumers are seeing zero REAL wage growth.
5) From DAT Freight & Analytics: “The national average van truckload spot rate exceeded the contract rate in June for the first time since February 2022, and overall rate growth far exceeded volume growth last month. Spot linehaul rates increased at least 39% y/o/y across all three equipment types.”
6) Diesel prices jumped as Ukraine continues to knock out Russian refineries. Russia supplies 11% of the global seaborne diesel demand.
7) Container shipping prices were up slightly this week, though holding its gains. The Shanghai to NY at $7,904, up $2 is at the highest since September 2024. Shanghai to LA saw the price rise by $133 w/o/w, or by 2% to $6,482.
8) Influenced by the holiday, purchase applications fell .6% w/o/w and little changed over the past 3 weeks, ahead of what will be another rise in mortgage rates if the move in the US 10 yr yield holds. Refi’s were down by 4.1% w/o/w.
9) From a rent price perspective, Apartment List said, “we now appear to have hit an inflection point, signaling that the rental market may finally be stabilizing as construction slows and the recent influx of new units gets absorbed.” And, “The construction boom peaked in 2024, when we saw over 600 thousand new multifamily units hit the market, the most new supply in a single year since 1986. Since then, deliveries of new apartments have slowed considerably, albeit while remaining fairly robust by historic standards. Despite being on the downslope of the construction boom for nearly two years, the market had been struggling to absorb the swell of new inventory. That may finally be changing, as we see multifamily occupancy also hitting an inflection point in tandem with rent growth.”
10) From Pepsi: “obviously the Iran war and the impact on gas prices have been meaningful, not only in the US but across the world. Our international business continues very strong, and we were able to grow 7%, accelerating. In the US, we’re seeing the consumer changing behaviors, basically an acceleration of some of the behaviors we saw in the past. Probably some channels, more the impulse channels, have been impacted where there is more of a correlation with the price of gas. Certain convenience stores and some other independent, we’ve seen a slowdown of the conversion of traffic into purchases. So we’re seeing that.”
11) From Kura Sushi: “We were certainly disappointed that traffic came in negatively…but we believe that this is largely due to elevated gas prices…As the gas prices have eased, we’re beginning to see a little bit of benefit as we’ve entered Q4, but those benefits are partially offset by how popular the World Cup is, and so the guidance that we’re providing for the revenue contemplates the Q3 and Q4 macro background as well as the construction delays”
12) Potentially negative for assets around the world and the US dollar vs the yen was this very notable comment from the Japanese finance minister who said, “We would like to pursue measures that would encourage pension funds, including GPIF, to make substantially greater investments in Japanese financial assets.”
13) Japan said that June PPI rose 7.1% y/o/y with their heavy reliance on imported energy but that should get some relief, offset by a weak yen.
14) The Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised its cash rate to 2.50% as expected. And, they hinted at further increases, “With inflation still above target and economic activity expected to strengthen, some further reduction in monetary stimulus is likely to be required.”
Position: None
BY Doug Kass · Jul 10, 2026, 2:15 PM EDT
