Pre-Markets Flat to Close Out Trading Week
Friday, July 10th, 2026
Pre-market futures are mostly flat ahead of today’s opening bell — the final of the trading week, which has both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 on target for weekly gains. Wednesday was a tough trading session, with the bottom having seemed to fall out from the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran, though spot oil prices have remained comfortably in the $70s per barrel since.
Delta Posts Mixed Q2, EPS Guides Higher
Ahead of today’s open, one of the very first companies to report quarterly earnings, Delta Air Lines DAL, has done so. Earnings of $1.56 per share beat the Zacks consensus by a solid nickel, while revenues for the quarter missed expectations by -0.53% to $17.67 billion. The good news here is Delta has reported a top line roughly a billion dollars higher than the year-ago quarter.
The major airline is now riding a seven-quarter streak of positive earnings surprises. Even better, the company raised its earnings per share guidance to a range of $6.50-7.50 — much stronger than the $5.78 per share in the most recent Zacks tally. Shares are down -1% on the news, but we see this more as profit-taking: Delta has gained more than +28% year to date. For more on DAL’s earnings, click here.
What to Expect from the Market Next Week
Both Q2 earnings releases and economic reports pick up when next week’s trading gets underway. More specifically, we look for these potential market-moving events to commence next Tuesday morning, when June inflation numbers and four of Wall Street’s biggest banks and investment firms report Q2 earnings.
Last month, Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures landed in uncomfortably high ranges: +4.2% on the headline Inflation Rate, +2.9% on core (subtracting volatile food & energy prices). This headline number was the highest in more than three years, when CPI figures were headed in the opposite direction, though we can see via the core print that a lot of this was due to energy prices, which are still considered “temporary.”
The Producer Price Index (PPI) for May — basically the wholesale inflation read compared to CPI’s retail inflation — demonstrates a deeper problem: +6.5% headline, +5.1% core. This means that producer inflation, minus directly related aspects to the Strait of Hormuz, was still well above 2x what the Fed had previously considered optimal inflation levels. We take this to mean higher oil prices for longer has seeped into other areas of the economy, such as transportation, agriculture and manufacturing.
Later next week, housing data comes forth from Pending Home Sales Thursday and Housing Starts/Building Permits and Homebuilder Confidence on Friday. Pending home sales were up +3.8% last month, while starts and permits remained on the low side. Homebuilders confidence was a woeful 35 last month (anything under 50 indicates a pessimistic market). The last time this was at 50 or above was April of 2023.
Also on Tuesday morning, Q2 earnings results are due from JPMorganJPM, CitigroupC, Goldman SachsGS and Wells FargoWFC. Of these, only Goldman Sachs currently has a Zacks Rank Buy, while the others are Holds. Wednesday brings us Morgan StanleyMS and BlackRockBLK earnings, and Thursday opens up from the finance realm with NetflixNFLX and Taiwan SemiconductorTSM.
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