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July 28, 2026
Dow: 52,210
S&P: 7,413
Nasdaq: 24,932
10-YR T-Note: 4.62%
Bitcoin: 63,466
VIX: 18.81
Gold: $4,026
Crude Oil: 81.45
Don Selkin, the creator and innovator of the "Fair Value" numbers, as its Chief Market Strategist on the Newbridge platform has given CNBC and its Predecessor, these numbers every day for the over 40 years - never missing a single day, as well as given the fair value for the Nasdaq 100 futures since their introduction in 1996 and the Dow Jones stock index futures since 1997. Mr. Selkin has also been quoted in several publications including but not limited to Bloomberg News, New York Post, Reuters, and The New York Times. Mr. Selkin's Fair Value numbers are included in the U.S.
Futures Report broadcast on CNBC every day before the market
opens attributing "Newbridge Securities" as the source. In addition, NSC provides to its professionals, their clients and the public access to Don Selkin's more in depth financial market views.
For the week that just ended, the Dow finished lower for the third straight time while the S&P and Nasdaq were down for the second straight week while crude oil prices gained for three straight weeks because of the escalation of Iranian war troubles as the U.S. underwent bombings of nights within that country while the Straights of Hormuz were effectively closed.
Ironically, those stocks that sold off sharply for a few weeks actually had the nerve to rally back – SNDK, MU, STX and WDC as investors decided to re-enter into them as semiconductor issues had taken a real beating lately.
Another stock that has really taken a nosedive is none other than the formerly beloved SPCX which is now down for 13 of the past 16 sessions after its IPO at 135 and initial trading price of 160. It had gotten as high as 210 in a few days on hopes that investors would benefit from thousands of Americans travelling back and forth between this country and the planet Marz.
The only issue here is that if anyone believes that a stock with a net loss of $4.9 billion las year as combining artificial intelligence division adds massive capital expenditures while muddying core space revenues. Its multiple on sales compared to traditional tech giants also makes it difficult to justify its current valuations.
This coming week will be very important as it is the largest one in terms of earnings reports for the second quarter with around 160 S&P companies giving forth their results, with the following highlights as follows:
Tuesday – Dow components BA, KO and V; Wednesday – Dow components MSFT, PG and META; Thursday – Dow components AAPL, MA in addition to AMZN; Friday – Dow component CVX plus XOM.
And just as importantly we also have a Federal Reserve meeting on Wednesday. Even though the President would like to have rates coming lower, the majority of the committee, including new Chairman Kevin Warsh, has to give into the fact that rising oil price and new tariff rates could give into the possible necessity of increasing rates.
On the other hand, stagnating employment and new home sales could suggest that rate decreases could help the economy.
The Fed has a dual mandate of maximum employment or the lowest level of unemployment that the economy can sustain in the context of price stability (at 2%). When inflation increases, central banks raise rates to increase the cost of borrowing and make purchases more expensive. The result should be a decrease in purchases and a slowing of demand. If a central bank moves rates to counter inflation, this can lead to stagflation, which is a bad scenario when economic growth is slowing at the same time as increasing inflation. When the economy slows for other reasons, this can manifest itself in lower rates for business loans, autos and mortgages. This should spur the economy without spiking inflation.
The labor market is split with some industries hiring and others not doing so much. Inflation may be cooling, but disruptions in the Middle East have changed the energy picture. Therefore, they will be watching the Core PCE, which measures what consumers actually buy and the July data will come too late for this meeting. Without a significant shift, staying steady this week appears to be the best course.
Consumers and small businesses should not be expecting any rate cuts unless tensions calm down and prices cool even more and the jobs market goes from shaky to shrinking and that would indicate a worsening environment that an interest rate cut is going to lead you into.
