{"id":3076,"date":"2026-08-14T19:01:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T19:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bellvest.ca\/family-wealth-beaches\/en\/?post_type=resources&p=3076"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:52:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:52:28","slug":"resources-august-2026-market-minutes-ai-earnings-oil","status":"publish","type":"resources","link":"https:\/\/www.bellvest.ca\/family-wealth-beaches\/resources\/resources-august-2026-market-minutes-ai-earnings-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Market Minutes Report: August 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rising yields, an unresolved Middle East, and open questions about AI valuations gave July’s investors plenty to price and very little to price it on. Corporate earnings proved the more reliable guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Reserve’s inaction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Markets are supposed to run on information. For much of July they ran on the absence of it\u2014and moved just as decisively for the lack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider the Federal Reserve. Inflation remains well above target, oil is pushing it higher, and last month’s meeting held rates steady with three members dissenting in favour of an increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chairman Warsh has named price stability as his priority without yet acting to secure it and has made clear he prefers the committee’s deliberations stay behind closed doors. Investors have filled that silence with their own conclusions, including the suggestion that an appointee of this administration will ultimately deliver the lower rates it wants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We find little to corroborate that view, but so long as the question persists, so too does the volatility attached.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Oil prices & the Strait of Hormuz<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Oil has been priced in similar fashion. Attacks at the start of July took crude up fifteen dollars almost immediately, past a hundred; down to seventy; and back to eighty-five. As we write, another rumoured deal with Iran has taken ten dollars off the barrel. Perhaps this one holds. The record of false starts argues for patience, and we would want the Strait truly open before treating any of it as settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even then, rebuilding supply takes longer than announcing peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI valuations: Microsoft’s reversal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Technology has endured turnabouts as well. Microsoft spent months cast as a casualty of the software disruption it helped create, then reported an exceptional quarter and rose more than 25% in three days. Business valuations are elastic, but a shift worth hundreds of billions of dollars following a single earnings report feels removed from underlying value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese competition & hyperscaler funding<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Competition abroad is gaining. Chinese models are taking share and competing capably, which makes the path to hyperscaler profitability less obvious than it looked a year ago. Most have exhausted what they generate internally and are now issuing debt to keep building, arriving in a bond market that is absorbing heavy government supply as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corporate earnings & accounting methods<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Of the earnings growth being celebrated, we note that a portion reflects a significant rise in the value of investments held on corporate balance sheets such as Anthropic, SpaceX, and OpenAI rather than operational profits. The treatment is standard accounting; the error would be reading it as recurring indefinitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet the earnings themselves have been substantial enough to absorb the unanswered questions across AI, the Middle East, and higher rates. That is the fact of the month, and it is the one that came with evidence attached rather than inference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Market returns for July 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"July<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Also in this issue:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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