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Oil, Stock Prices, Earnings, and Country Roads

  • Writer: Doug MacGray
    Doug MacGray
  • 3 hours ago
  • 6 min read

July 19, 2026

OIL PRICES BACK ABOVE $100 PER BARREL: With renewed vigor in the Iran war, oil prices have shot back up above $100 per barrel for the first time since June 3.



U.S. STOCKS DECLINE: U.S. stocks across the board were negative last week. The S&P 500 registered its second consecutive negative week for the first time since March. With little in the way of economic reports, geopolitical events and their impact on oil prices took center stage as well as a general sense that AI stocks have potentially risen a bit too much. Tech stocks took the biggest beating with Tesla down 18% and Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), and SpaceX each down more than 6%. Other areas of the market were up such as the S&P 500 energy (3.8%) and utilities (2.5%) sectors. Chip manufacturers also had a positive week. This coming week, four of the Magnificent Seven companies will report their second quarter earnings.


LONGER-TERM PERFORMANCE: Below are the annualized three-year and five-year numbers for these same indices.


EARNINGS CONTINUE TO DRIVE THE MARKET: 81 of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported their second quarter earnings. As a group, these companies have reported earnings that are up 25.9% from a year ago. If this pace holds as the rest of the companies report, it will be the seventh straight quarter of double digit year-over-year earnings growth, and the second straight quarter with earnings growth above 20% year over year. Over time, stock prices tend to follow earnings. The earnings story has broadened over the past two years. During the 2023 to 2024 period, the Magnificent Seven companies accounted for most of the S&P 500's earnings growth. In 2023, Magnificent Seven company earnings rose 60%. The other 493 companies were close to flat. Over the past two years, the Magnificent Seven companies' earnings growth has slowed, but the remaining 493 companies have shown dramatic improvement.


THE FED: Next week, the Fed meets for the second time under new Chair Kevin Warsh. Former Chair Powell remains a voting member, and the Fed is set up for division. With inflation persistently higher than the Fed's 2% target, a rate cut is highly unlikely. There is a small chance of a hike at this meeting, but that probably will not happen. At the last meeting, nine of the nineteen members predicted one or more rate hikes this year. Other than interest rates, the Fed can tighten or loosen the money supply which has an obvious impact on inflation. I expect Chair Warsh will rely more on those measures in the short term as effects of the two wars and oil prices play out. In short, the Fed is probably not moving interest rates at this meeting, and maybe for the next few meetings.


MORTGAGE RATES GOING BACK UP: Affordability of homes remains a key problem in this economy. The recent move in mortgage rates is not helping.



UNEMPLOYMENT IN DEVELOPED ECONOMIES: The U.S. unemployment rate has not changed much of late, and is now 4.2%. How does that compare with other developed economies? Finland leads the developed world with 10.8% unemployment. Spain is the only other such nation in double digits at 10.3%. Czechia, Israel, South Korea, Mexico and Japan all have unemployment rates below 3%, with Japan the lowest at 2.5%. Seven of the countries with the worst unemployment rates are in Europe. Our other neighbor, Canada, has 6.6% unemployment. In the U.S. seven states have unemployment rates at 5.0% or higher, and those are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. The states with unemployment below 3.0% are Hawaii, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont, with South Dakota the lowest at 2.0%.


WHERE'S WALDO (OR RATHER, WHERE'S DOUG)?: Back in 2019, my family and I made a trip to Ireland, a long-desired goal of mine. It was a wonderful trip where we spent time in Dublin, Sligo, and Galway. Ever since, Deb and I have never quite come to agreement as to where we want to revisit between Sligo and Galway, she preferring Galway, and me Sligo. So we decided to do a trip to both, one week each. We did it in a manner that allowed me to get some work done while there. In the first week in Galway, I actually held some client meetings and kept up with emails, etc. In week two, it was more vacation heavy, But we heartily enjoyed both weeks. Our conclusion was that neither is "better," they are just different. We picked up so many insights into the Irish culture on this trip. I can't go into it all here, but I'll give two quick examples from conversations we had with two young men (both in early 20s). One, Alan, told us that Americans don't understand how important community is to the Irish. He told us that the sport of hurling is so popular because each county has its own team, and you are only allowed to play for the team of the county where you were born. None of the players get paid. They do it for their community to whom they have intense loyalty. We had another conversation with a young man in Sligo, and we asked him, "which pub do you like to go to?" He said, "Rendezvous Pub. My dad has been going there for thirty years, and now I do." It is not just about drinking Guinness. These pubs are community centers. They have music, darts, pool, and other events. We Americans are generally welcome invaders and observers of this, but there is an intense community aspect to the network of pubs. And by the way, many of these pubs are incredible museums. You could spend hours in each just looking at what they have gathered in all the nooks and snugs and walls of these places, just fascinating Finally, I'll give you one tip if you go We went to one pub called McLaughlin's in Sligo because we heard they were having traditional music that night at 9pm. No less than 15 people played all the way until midnight. We stayed for the whole thing. The next day, we bumped into one of the players. He said they were surprised that we stayed the whole time. They said most Americans leave early. Our staying energized them, he said. So if you go, get a nap, and stay for the whole session when you find a place that does traditional music. You won't be sorry. If you click on this link, you can see yours truly singing "Country Roads" (which they did in our honor) as the video was added to McLaughlin's Facebook page!



Have a great week!


Our purpose is to honor God by helping our clients see the objective, find the path, and navigate past the obstacles to a more prosperous future.



Douglas R. MacGray, J.D., C.F.P. ®

President

Stonecrop Wealth Advisors, LLC

Direct | Cell | Fax

(610) 628 4545



"May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far." Irish Proverb


"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." Calvin Coolidge*


"Let your conversation be always full of grace." Colossians 4:6 (NIV)


*In commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, I am finding a quote from a president each week, in order. This is the 30th week, and Calvin Coolidge was our 30th president.


SOURCES:

MORTGAGE RATES GOING BACK UP: YCharts.com

OIL PRICES BACK ABOVE $100 PER BARREL: YCharts.com

UNEMPLOYMENT IN DEVELOPED ECONOMIES: https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/finland-spain-have-highest-unemployment-rates-japan-lowest AND https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/lauhsthl.htm (c) 2026 Anno Domini, Stonecrop Wealth Advisors, LLC, All Rights Reserved


Investment advisory services offered through Stonecrop Wealth Advisors, LLC, a Registered Investment Advisor with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.


SDG

*S&P 500: This is a measure of the performance of the 500 largest companies in the United States, and it a common index to track the performance of U.S. equity markets, especially the large cap markets.

*MSCI All Country World Index X US: This is a broad measure of the performance of worldwide equity markets excluding the United States.

*Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate: This is a measure of the U.S. bond markets.

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