July 23rd Pre-Market Brief

Three Chokepoints, A Quarter Of The World's Oil, No Buffer Left

Author

J.L. Bernstein
July 23, 2026

Sponsored by

Good Morning

Brent kissed the big 100 overnight, futures are red on all major indices, and the VIX is up.

Alphabet and Tesla both posted big quarters last night and are stillg etting sold off into opening bell. Traders are pricing in about a one-in-three chance the Fed raises rates next week, and this morning's low jobless claims gave them no reason to back off.

Let's dig in...

Today's Big Picture

1. Oil Crossed $100 With The Buffer Gone

The Houthis hit two Saudi tankers at the Bab el-Mandeb overnight and Brent touched 100 for the first time in about two months. That strait was the workaround after Hormuz closed, and there's no cushion underneath: U.S. crude inventories sit at Reagan-era lows after the strategic releases earlier in the war. Trump extended his one-bridge-per-ship threat to targets inside Tehran and says Iran will answer for Houthi attacks too. Retaliation on both sides is now preset, so the next tanker hit arrives with a military response already attached.

2. The AI Bill Landed And The Market Picked Sides

Alphabet beat everywhere it counts, grew cloud to $24.8 billion, and got sold for raising this year's spend toward $205 billion. Tesla missed on profit, confirmed more than $25 billion of capex, and free cash flow went negative at both. Meanwhile Samsung and SK Hynix rallied hard on the exact same news, because Alphabet's spending line is their order book. The AI trade is no longer yes or no, it's who pays the bill versus who cashes it.

3. Rate Fear Has The Wheel

Claims printed 187,000 against 211,000 expected, and hike odds for next Wednesday now sit near one in three, up from one in ten a week ago. The 10-year yield touched its highest level since January 2025, and stocks and bonds are selling off together again. The tell is gold, down on a morning full of war headlines: when bullion can't catch a bid during an escalation, the market is trading rate risk, not safety. Wheat just hit a three-year high too, and food joining energy is how a supply shock becomes a CPI problem the Fed can't wave off.

P.S. The Market does’’t reward yesterday's winners forever.

As the Magnificent 7 mature, the next generation of leaders begins to emerge - often quietly, before the crowd catches on.

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Stock Spotlight (pre-market)

Lockheed Martin $LMT ( ▲ 1.43% )  

beat, raised its full year outlook, and its order book hit a record $230 billion, including a preliminary $35 billion Pentagon deal for Thaad missile interceptors

American Airlines $AAL ( ▼ 3.21% )  

Cut its full year outlook a second time on fuel and now guides to roughly breakeven at the midpoint. United still guides to nine to eleven dollars a share, so the catch up story just got pushed out again.

Confirmed the weak quarter it preannounced last week and the stock is still heavy. Dip buyers who stepped in after the record selloff were betting the full report would soften the story.

Texas Instruments $TXN ( ▲ 0.99% )  

Beat on both lines and trades lower anyway. Analog chips track the real economy, making this the hiding spot for anyone who wanted semis without AI risk. A sold beat says that corner is crowded too, and crowded hiding spots stop working.

ServiceNow $NOW ( ▼ 6.47% )  

Raised its subscription forecast for the second time this year and is up sharply. It sells AI without building a single data center, the exact profile this tape pays for. Every software name reporting next week now walks into a raised bar, and managers who wrote off the group after IBM have to split it in two.

Eli Lilly $LLY ( ▼ 1.06% )  

Cleared two more late stage trials for retatrutide with patients losing about a fifth of their body weight, including diabetics who typically lose the least. The filing slips to early 2027 on manufacturing data. That hands Novo an extra year to defend its turf, and anyone modeling retatrutide revenue next year just lost their timeline.

What to Watch

Upcoming IPO’s?
MarketBeat did an excellent job on this free IPO guide on IPO’s happening this year.

Intel Earnings (After Today's Close)
The stock has nearly tripled this year, so the bar is the whole story. Data center is the line that matters. A clean beat steadies the chip trade into Friday, any guidance wobble and the whole complex follows it down.

Trump Tariff Plan C (Friday)
The new tariffs land Friday under narrower legal authorities after the Supreme Court killed the sweeping version in February. Narrow authority means sector-specific levies that courts can strike down piecemeal, so whatever prints Friday is a starting bid. Watch which law each tariff cites, that detail decides how long it survives.


- John

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Note: This newsletter is intended for informational purposes only. This edition is in partnership with MarketBeat.