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Oil Up and Stocks Mixed, Hard Work, and Perhaps I Should Focus on Pickleball

  • Writer: Doug MacGray
    Doug MacGray
  • Jul 12
  • 5 min read

July 7, 2026 OIL BACK UP, STOCKS MIXED: The Iran war heated back up, oil prices rose, and stocks struggled. However, U.S. tech and energy stocks rose which carried the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ to a positive week. Hewlett Packard and Meta both rose double digits for the week. South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix launched what turned out to be a $26.5 billion share sale, the largest ever by a non U.S. company.


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


U.S. SERVICES SECTOR STILL GROWING, BUT GROWTH RATE SLOWS: The ISM Services Index, a measure of non-manufacturing activity, came in at 54.0 in June. It was 54.5 in May. Anything above 50 indicates growth, so the non-manufacturing economy remains in expansion mode. The expansion in June was broad with 14 of the 18 major service industries reporting growth.


NEW WEEKLY JOBLESS CLAIMS REMAINS LOW: 215,000 workers filed for unemployment in the U.S. for the week ending July 4. That was a bit lower than the prior week. The average per week over the first six months of the year was just about 213,000, the best such six-month stretch in over a half a century.


EUROPEAN YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT: What do Estonia, Spain, Sweden, Romania, Finland, Luxembourg and Italy have in common? They all have over 20% of 15-24-year-olds who are unemployed. Overall, the unemployment rate for this group in the entire European Union is 14.8%. Only the Netherlands, Germany and Malta have single digit unemployment for this age group.


SALES OF EXISTING U.S. HOMES DECLINES IN JUNE: Sales of existing homes in the U.S. have been stuck at around a 4 million pace for about three years which was about the same pace as the post Great Financial Crisis time period. Affordability remains the main issue. This has not improved of late with the Iran conflict causing higher energy prices and pushing up inflation. This took Fed interest rate cuts for 2026 off the table, it seems. Overall supply has been improving, and the price of a home is only up 1.8% from a year ago, but that is not enough to get more buyers into the market.


I FEEL PRETTY GOOD ABOUT THIS: I just read an article about the future of the investment advisory business. The author discussed the trend of smaller firms getting purchased by private equity or otherwise consolidating with other, larger firms. Will it create an environment where the only survivors will be mega firms and small, narrow niche/boutique firms? After discussing that issue for a bit, he eventually stated near his conclusion:


Through all of the talk about the right model, the right P&L, the right distribution of services and division of labor, the continuum of touch vs. size, the individuality of small practices versus the institutionalism of large ones, let us never forget that advisors are always and forever competing against other advisors, and many of those advisors are unbelievably lazy.


That’s right. Lazy. Or if you prefer, disengaged. Content. Settled. Uncompetitive. Disinterested. So while a given advisor who values their career future and their ability to properly serve clients should care about the model they work in, an economically optimal structure, a successful size and scale, and all of those things … they are actually going to work every day against a profession that has increasingly touted “lifestyle practices” and “work from home” and “work-life balance.”


Then he ultimately concludes with: But more than anything in front of us as an advisory profession right now is this: We have an industry where a lot - not all, but a lot - of our competitors are not just disinterested in hard work, but celebrate it and boast about it. There is no model, no structure, no deal, no box that is going to fix that. If you want to thrive in the present and in the future, there is no lower hanging fruit than to outwork the competition.


And I am telling you that you will not find that as daunting as you think.


I am confident that on the 'hard work" front, our Stonecrop team is well-positioned to continue to do quite well. I am very proud of them.


WHY DO I EVEN TRY?: I completed two marathons last year. It took a lot of work. I decided to take a year off from marathons this year, and redirect that time toward other things. One has been golf. I am a bad golfer, and I just want to get to decent, and so I've been more consistent in practicing, got some lessons, and even bought a net for the back yard. Last week I played a round of golf which was as bad as any round I have played in the past couple of years. It is such a humbling sport. Just when you think you are starting to make some progress, bam! I'll try to get back up off the mat again, that's what I usually do.



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




"[T]he single most consistent thing I have observed is that money is not what most clients think it is. It is necessary—its absence can be wrenching. But it is not sufficient." John Coleman, From Financial Plans to Financial Flourishing (link here)


"If you lose your wealth, you have lost nothing; if you lose your health, you have lost something; but if you lose your character, you have lost everything." Woodrow Wilson*


"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty: I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."" Philippians 4:11-12 (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 28th week, and Woodrow Wilson was our 28th president


SOURCES:

NEW WEEKLY JOBLESS CLAIMS REMAINS LOW: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/04/30/unemployment-benefits-jobless-claims-layoffs-labor/7030ee42-4492-11f1-b19d-32431046b5b4_story.html AND https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/u-s-jobless-claims-edged-lower-last-week-f35e8718?mod=economy_feat5_jobs_pos1 AND https://qz.com/us-jobless-claims-189000-lowest-since-1969-043026


(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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