U.S. stocks are entering a difficult stretch, with war in the Gulf having kicked back into full gear over the weekend and the tech trade, that has carried markets higher throughout most of the year, turning bearish just as some of the key players update on second quarter earnings this week.

The setup comes just as stocks look set to break out of a tight trading range that has defined markets for most of the past two months, with the S&P 500 hovering around the 7500 point mark since mid May and the Nasdaq down nearly 6% from its early June peak. 

Chip stocks, as defined by the PHLX Semiconductor index, are now down more than 20% from their late June peak, while a rotation into the Magnificent Seven tech giants has supported, but not powered, the Nasdaq this month, keeping its July decline pegged at around 2.6%.

What happens next is key.

Google owner Alphabet, electric vehicle giant Tesla, as well as chip maker Intel, will headline a brisk earnings calendar this week, with investors looking for clues from the tech trade to carry markets from their current torpor. 

Against that concern, however, is a rapidly-developing backdrop of war in the Gulf, where the U.S. and Iran are trading strikes, renewing threats and adding to last week’s 16% increase in global crude prices. That’s likely to boost inflation pressures and bond yields while trimming risk sentiment.

That leaves tech, once again, responsible for steadying investor nerves amid questions over the massive levels of AI spending, and the emerging challenges from cutprice chatbots from China, that suggest growing concern for the market’s only winning bet.

The stock market is turning to tech much like the Argentina soccer team turned to their aging hero Lionel Messi in Sunday’s World Cup final.

Investors can’t afford tech earnings to misfire too.

—Martin Baccardax

Barron’s Live: A decent first half of the year for the stock market implies more gains in the second half, says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. Stovall discusses his economic and investment outlook, and the prospects for the S&P’s 11 industry sectors, today at noon with Barron’s Senior Managing Editor Lauren R. Rublin and Associate Editor Al Root. Sign up here.

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Gasoline and diesel prices have been rising again as tensions flare between the U.S. and Iran, with average U.S. gas prices climbing above $4 a gallon Monday for the first time since mid-June. The war is making crude oil more expensive, but the biggest cost-driver for gasoline appears to be a middleman in the process of getting that fuel to the station: refiners.

Valero, Phillips 66, and Marathon Petroleum have record margins for turning crude oil into fuel, and those “crack spreads” aren’t likely to return to normal soon. A profitability benchmark for turning three barrels of oil into two barrels of gasoline and one of diesel reached a record $69.45.

• Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at OPIS (owned by the same parent company as Barron’s) says the average 3-2-1 crack spread—which is what that benchmark is called—was $23.19 from 2018 to 2025. Most of a gallon of gas is the cost of crude, plus refining, taxes, distribution and marketing.

• When gas prices spike, stations look like the biggest beneficiaries, because they’re the ones consumers pay directly. But during the Iran war, refiners have been getting a much larger piece of each dollar spent on gasoline and diesel than they did before, and stations are earning a smaller portion than usual.

• As of March 2026, refining is making up 21% of the cost of each gallon of gas, versus an average of 15% between 2016 and 2025, according to the Energy Information Administration. By comparison, gas stations prices haven’t increased as fast as the cost of the fuel they’re buying, Cinquegrana says. 

What’s Next: There’s no easy fix. It takes years to build a new refinery and not much new capacity is expected around the world. Refineries in the Middle East and Asia have reduced capacity because of a lack of oil to process and Russian refineries have been knocked offline in Ukrainian attacks.

—Avi Salzman

FIFA World Cup may not have improved Nike’s prospects. In fact, Adidas appears to have emerged victorious. Google search interest in the brand is up more than 40% in the U.S. and 14% globally, and traffic to adidas.com is up more than 100%, notes Bernstein analyst Aneesha Sherman.

• As the premier global soccer event, the World Cup is naturally a major exhibition for sportswear companies to showcase their best products, and going into the tournament two teams kitted out by Nike—France and England—were heavily favored to win. Then they didn’t. Spain beat Argentina in Sunday’s final.

• Recall that the 2024 Olympics failed as Nike’s much hoped-for turnaround catalyst. And while the tournament has drawn interest in the key North American market, Nike ran out of many Team USA jerseys while enthusiasm was at its peak, only to restock after the U.S. was eliminated.

• Bernstein analysts led by Sherman note that North America spends the most per capita on sportswear, so hosting the World Cup is a meaningful tailwind to the category as a whole, and there has been a notable increase in soccer product-related sales in recent months—including for Nike.

• HSBC analyst Akshay Gupta warned that any World Cup bump is likely to be short-lived: Even though traffic to Nike’s website finally returned to growth in June (up 12% year over year), “likely temporarily benefiting from a World Cup related boost,” that’s well below the 66% jump Adidas recorded.

What’s Next: Back to school shopping season begins next month, and Nike will release its fiscal first quarter earnings report in September and have an investor day in November. Most new product launches aren’t due out until next spring.

—Teresa Rivas

SpaceX stock has been struggling lately, but investors will be hoping that some on-the-ground assets can help end the funk. The rocket and artificial intelligence company is in talks with the U.S. government, according to a report.

• SpaceX is in discussions about giving the Defense Department access to data-center capacity worth billions of dollars for running AI models, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment from Barron’s.

• SpaceX has signed similar deals with Anthropic and Google, which will generate some $26 billion in annual revenue when ramped up. The company also does a lot of business with the U.S. military, launching satellites and building communications and missile defense networks.

• Eventually, SpaceX plans to put AI data centers in orbit, believing they will be lower cost and utilize free power from the sun. Achieving low costs depends on Starship, SpaceX’s huge fully reusable rocket.

• Coming into Monday trading, SpaceX stock was down for six straight sessions, closing on Friday at an all-time low of $123.99. That’s almost 40% below the all-time closing high of $201.80 shares reached on June 16.

What’s Next: SpaceX is set to launch its 13th Starship test on Thursday, at about 6:45 p.m. Eastern time. The company scrubbed the first attempt at the test flight last week after some engines failed to light.

—Al Root and George Glover

It’s one of the hottest questions in the pharmaceutical industry: what can replace the best selling drug in the world, Merck’s Keytruda, once the company’s patents start peeling off in 2028? Keytruda has become part of the standard treatment, which is chemotherapy plus an immunotherapy.

• Many think the next standard treatment will pair two innovations: precisely-targeted chemo drugs known as antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, and augmented immunotherapies in the form of bispecific antibodies. Drug companies are working hard on one of these next-generation products.

• Bispecific antibodies are being tested by Bristol Myers Squibb (with its partner BioNTech), AstraZeneca, and the biotech firm Summit Therapeutics. ADCs have already rung up big sales for Astra, Pfizer, Gilead Sciences, and Roche Holding, but Merck has a strong contender in development.

• Immunotherapies like Keytruda and Bristol’s Opdivo, are antibodies that foil a ruse used by cancer cells to disarm the immune system. Cancer cells display a “stand-down” signal called PD-1 that tells immune cells to leave them alone. By blocking PD-1 signaling, immunotherapy drugs reopen the cancer to immune attack.

• The PD-1 immunotherapies have been wildly successful products. Sales of Keytruda last year were $32 billion, while Opdivo’s sales were $10 billion. They have prolonged survival across the landscape of cancer; Keytruda is approved for 45 indicated uses.

What’s Next: AstraZeneca is conducting Phase 3 trials of bispecifics against several solid tumor cancers, as is Bristol-BioNTech. But one of the most closely watched trials is being run by Summit Therapeutics. It is due to report results from a Phase 3 trial of its biospecific in patients with lung cancer.

—Bill Alpert

After struggling to recover from the pandemic and a crippling strike by actors and writers, Hollywood studios are finally tracking their best year at the domestic box office since 2019. To date, ticket sales are up more than 10% from this time last year, thanks to blockbusters like The Odyssey.

• Audiences worldwide packed theaters to see Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, with many people buying pricier tickets to see it in the large-screen IMAX format that it was filmed for. The Universal film sold $124.5 million at the domestic box office and $264 million globally, Rentrak said.

• The movie has yet to debut in South Korea, China, and Japan. The debut weekend sales include a record $51.8 million of tickets sold for IMAX screens. Roth senior research analyst Eric Handler called The Odyssey a “transformational event” for IMAX, further cementing its position at the center of Hollywood.  

• For director Christopher Nolan, The Odyssey surpassed Oppenheimer, his 2023 biographical drama about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, which opened with $82.5 million. It’s also Nolan’s biggest global opening, surpassing the $249 million sales for The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.

• Barrington Research’s Patrick Sholl said that IMAX management has noted the larger number of 70 mm locations for The Odyssey compared with when Oppenheimer opened. Comcast-owned Universal’s marketing budget for the film was $125 million. 

What’s Next: IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said: “all the elements are in place for The Odyssey to enjoy a very long and successful run in IMAX.” IMAX reports earnings on Thursday. Sony Pictures’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which some say could be an even bigger blockbuster, opens on July 31.

—Janet H. Cho

—Newsletter edited by Liz Moyer, Callum Keown, Rupert Steiner