Good morning and welcome to today's market chronicle. It's Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Inflation cooled, and somehow we are still bombing an oil producer, but let us not spoil the party.
Yesterday the wonderful world of finance discovered that prices rose a little less than feared. June CPI printed at 3.5 percent against the 3.8 the consensus had lovingly penciled in, core at 2.6, and le tout-Wall Street exhaled as one, as if a single soft number had personally cancelled inflation. The S&P closed up 0.38 percent at 7,543, the Nasdaq tacked on nearly a percent to 26,107 on the usual chip enthusiasm, and the Dow, bless it, moved 0.02 percent, which is to say it stared at its shoes. Rate hike odds for July, and yes we are still discussing hikes in the year of our Lord 2026, collapsed toward 7 percent. Champagne. Then Kevin Warsh sat down in front of Congress and reminded everyone that the committee has little patience for elevated inflation, translation, do not get comfortable, and the dollar clawed back what it had given away. Cool data in the morning, cold water by lunch. Who actually won here? The algorithms that traded both prints.
But did you notice the small matter of American strikes on Iran, which is why crude spent a third straight session above 80. You cannot celebrate cooling inflation while lighting the fuse under the one input that uncooked it last time. The bond market noticed even if the equity crowd did not, which is how the 10-year ended up loitering near 4.62 percent, a two-month high, the canary quietly coughing in the corner while everyone toasts the CPI.
Today Warsh does it again, this time for the Senate Banking Committee, and the question is whether anyone still listens after yesterday's dress rehearsal. The banks keep reporting, and they keep beating, because of course they do. JPMorgan ($JPM) already popped two percent, Goldman Sachs ($GS) jumped after crushing estimates, Wells Fargo ($WFC) beat and shrugged higher. Earnings so good you almost forget nobody can explain the macro.
Gold slipped to around 4,030 an ounce, off half a percent, apparently unmoved by war, which tells you everything. WTI hovers near 81. Bitcoin got taken to the woodshed, down roughly three percent to about 62,000, the risk-off tell nobody wants to read. S&P futures are flat to fractionally soft before the bell, and the 10-year sits near 4.62, the skunk at the garden party.
So we open with good inflation, bad oil, a hawkish central banker and banks minting money. The emperor is fully dressed, apparently. Have a good one, and keep one eye on the crude.