Jul 30 • 4 min read
My 8 Favorite Investing Charts (July 2026)
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Today, I’m sharing 8 of my favorite investing & economic charts from the past month. These charts cover topics such as:
As always, I'll wrap up with a few of the best retirement and investing articles I read in the past week. *** Before we dive in, did you catch this week's podcast? 👇 Favorite Charts (July 2026)#1 - Earning Expectations Continue To Rise One of the most impressive market stories of recent years has been corporate America's ability to keep churning out record profits. And Wall Street doesn't expect that to stop. As the chart below shows, earnings are now expected to grow 24% in 2026, which may help explain why stocks have held up so well despite the steady stream of unsettling headlines. That's encouraging news for long-term investors, but at some point, growth will slow. And when it does, markets may get bumpier as investors adjust their expectations. You can also count on the financial media to frame any slowdown as a warning sign... or something worse. Our job is to tune out the alarm bells, stay disciplined, and look for the opportunities that volatility often creates. #2 - Tariff Rates Have Stabilized Tariffs have largely faded from the headlines, but they haven't gone away. After the sharp spike during the 2025 tariff turmoil, the effective tariff rate has settled between 6% and 7%. To be clear, that's still higher than before the recent trade disputes, and the broader policy environment remains uncertain. Even so, the stabilization is encouraging. When companies can better predict their costs, they can make smarter long-term decisions about pricing, hiring, and investing... the kind of decisions that ultimately drive earnings (and stock prices). #3 - The Risk of Buying Stocks at Their IPO In the weeks leading up to the SpaceX IPO, one question came up over and over: "Should investors buy the stock as soon as it starts trading?" So far, the market has offered a useful answer. After surging to a high of $225, the stock has fallen sharply, and now trades below its $135 IPO price. Notably, that decline happened before 900+ million shares held by employees and insiders become eligible for sale in early August, when the lockup period expires. SpaceX may still prove to be an excellent long-term investment, but its early performance is a good reminder of why we generally avoid buying IPOs. High expectations. Limited public history. Price discovery still playing out. Put those together, and newly listed stocks can be especially unpredictable, no matter how exciting the company. #4 - A Reminder of Why We Diversify (1 of 2) Artificial intelligence has fueled one of the market's strongest — and perhaps most widely doubted — trades in recent years. But even the most powerful trends don't move higher in a straight line. Pullbacks, sharp swings, and stretches of disappointing performance are a normal part of investing. For anyone who felt tempted to go all-in on AI, the recent decline is a timely reminder of why diversification matters. Concentrating in a single company, sector, or theme can feel rewarding on the way up, but it leaves a portfolio especially vulnerable when sentiment shifts. And sentiment always shifts. #5 - A Reminder of Why We Diversify (2 of 2) For a while, it seemed investors only needed to own the so-called "Magnificent 7" to earn strong returns. Not anymore. Through the first half of 2026, those seven stocks collectively contributed almost nothing to the S&P 500's return. Microsoft alone subtracted 1.42 percentage points from the index's return after its share price fell 22%. Meanwhile, the other 493 companies in the index quietly contributed more than 10 percentage points. Yesterday's market leaders don't always remain tomorrow's leaders, and no one knows exactly when that shift will occur. That, my friends, is why we diversify. 😉 #6 - Inflation Remains a Major Concern With gas prices climbing back above $4 per gallon, inflation has once again moved to the top of consumers' minds. In a recent survey, 64% of consumers named inflation one of their biggest worries, far more than any other issue. The concern is understandable. Inflation rose to 4.2% in May — its highest level in roughly three years — before easing to 3.5% in June. The good news? As the next chart highlights, the new Fed Chair appears to be taking the renewed inflation pressure seriously. #7 - Rate Expectations Have Completely Reversed At the start of 2026, investors broadly expected the Fed to cut interest rates by roughly half a percentage point this year. Today, with Fed Chair Kevin Warsh emphasizing "price stability," markets expect rates to rise by ~0.30% before year-end. That effectively prices in one rate hike, along with some possibility of a second. It's a striking reversal in just a few months, and given the damage persistent inflation can cause, the Fed's renewed focus is encouraging. #8 - Politics Can Distract Us From What Matters Most With the midterm elections approaching, here's a timely reminder: Political outcomes have historically mattered far less to long-term stock market returns than many investors assume. Yes, returns have varied depending on which party controlled the White House and Congress. But party platforms have also shifted dramatically since 1933, so those differences can't tell us much about today's politics. The chart's more important takeaway is that every political combination produced comfortably positive average annual returns. That's no accident. Businesses continue to innovate, adapt, and generate profits no matter who is in power. For long-term investors, those fundamentals matter far more than any single election. Bottom LineEarnings are booming, and tariffs have finally stabilized. On the other hand, inflation remains a concern, rate expectations have completely reversed, and the market's most celebrated stocks have stumbled. In other words, the investment environment is rarely all good or all bad. Nobody knows which storyline will matter most. That's not a reason to worry... it's the reason we diversify, stay patient, and stay disciplined. I hope these charts helped put today's headlines into perspective. 📚 What I've Been Reading
Thank you for reading! Please reply to this email with comments, questions, and/or feedback. Stay wealthy, Taylor Schulte, CFP® |