The Week Ahead (27 – 31 Jul): Iran War, Interest Rates, US Tech, Rolls-Royce

The five-month-old war between the US/Israel and Iran escalated sharply this week following the complete collapse of the temporary April ceasefire. As the US military intensified its campaign, it launched its 13th consecutive night of heavy strikes across Iran. This is despite concern in Congress about the cost of the war, which has already run to $37.5 billion. The Pentagon formally requested an urgent $67 billion supplement to fund ongoing Middle East operations.

Iran continued to target US assets in the region, and the Iranian-aligned Houthis declared an aggressive naval blockade against Saudi Arabia. They explicitly threatened to target Saudi crude exports, leading to multiple commercial oil tankers reversing course in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Red Sea to avoid attack.

With such a background, it is unspurprising that oil prices have been the major gainer this week. Brent crude prices surged by nearly $30/bbl from their early-July lows on Thursday before moderating. Tanker traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle, the lowest level in over two months. The market has entered backwardation, signalling near-term supply anxiety amid depleting global commercial inventories.

[Source: IG]

Gold has been caught between two competing factors this week. Its status as a safe-haven asset had led to early-week gains. However, a stronger US dollar, rising bond yields, and the need for dollar liquidity in oil-producing Gulf states have taken the shine off since mid-week:

[Source: IG]

Wall Street suffered its worst single-day drop in a month on Thursday, with the S&P 500 sliding 1.2%. Megacap tech stocks bore the brunt of the sell-off as the threat of war-driven inflation keeping interest rates higher for longer, combined with massive AI infrastructure capital expenditure, sparked jitters.

However, zooming out a little, I am surprised by how strong the US market has been in the face of renewed hostilities, with the current dip barely visible on the YTD chart:

[Source: IG]

Perhaps it shows that it is not bad news that causes market panics, but unexpected bad news. The bond markets are perhaps less sanguine, and the US 10yr reached a high for the year of 4.7%, while the UK 10yr went above 5% again:

[Source: Trading Economics]

This mismatch may lead to a correction in either direction soon.

Here's what we can look forward to next week:

Economic Calendar

Monday 27 July
09:00	Germany	IFO Business Climate
13:30	United States	Durable Goods Orders
Tuesday 28 July
14:00	United States	House Price Index
15:00	United States	Consumer Confidence
Wednesday 29 July
09:30	UK	Mortgage Approvals
15:30	United States	EIA Crude Oil Inventories
19:00	United States	Fed Interest Rate Decision
Thursday 30 July
07:00	Germany	GDP (Preliminary)
10:00	Euro Area	Economic Sentiment Indicator GDP (Preliminary)
12:00	UK	BoE Interest Rate Decision
13:00	Germany	Inflation
13:30	United States	GDP (Preliminary) Initial Jobless Claims Personal Income Personal Spending
Friday 31 July
02:30	China	Manufacturing PMI
04:00	Japan	BoJ Interest Rate Decision
07:00	UK	Nationwide House Price Index
10:00	Euro Area	Inflation

Interest Decisions

As already mentioned, this week's interest rate decisions come amid rising bond yields and commodity prices. All three major central banks with decisions next week, the Fed, BoE and BoJ, are expected to hold rates steady. However, it will perhaps be the policymakers' comments that move the market.

• Fed: The US Central Bank is the most likely candidate for a surprise hike. Under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, the FOMC has turned aggressively strict on price stability. The Fed has entirely scrubbed rate-cut language from statements and signalled future hikes. Here, markets are pricing in a 34% chance of a surprise 25-basis-point rise. This would undoubtedly be market-moving as the current consensus doesn't see rate rises until the end of the year:
  [All charts in this section: Trading Economics
• BoE: At the last meeting, the MPC voted 7-2 to hold. However, Chief Economist Huw Pill and external member Megan Greene have both actively pushed to hike rates to 4.00%. Markets are now actively pricing in two UK rate hikes by March:
  However, paradoxically, we are less likely to see a surprise rise this month than in the US.
• BoJ: While a hold is expected this week, after June's hike to a 31-year high, the BoJ maintains a clear tightening bias. Prominent board members like Naoki Tamura continue to lobby for a rate hike "every few months" to push the policy rate toward a 2% neutral target. Analysts anticipate the next 25 bp hike will occur between October and December:
  
  

Companies Reporting

Date	UK Trading Updates & AGMs	UK Financial Results	International Financial Results
Monday 27 July		AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) (Q2) Cranswick (LON:CWK) (Q1) RTC (LON:RTC) (Interims) Quartix Technologies (LON:QTX) (Interims) Vodafone (LON:VOD) (Q1)	Bank of Marin Bancorp (NSQ:BMRC) Cadence Design Systems (NSQ:CDNS) Champions Oncology (NAQ:CSBR) F5 (NSQ:FFIV) LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (EPA:MC) (France) Nucor (NYQ:NUE) Koninklijke Philips NV (AMS:PHIA) (Netherlands) Ryanair Holdings (ISE:RYA) (Ireland) Welltower (NYQ:WELL)
Tuesday 28 July	Clontarf Energy (LON:CLON) (AGM) Metals One (LON:MET1) (AGM) Newriver Reit (LON:NRR) (AGM) Oxford Instruments (LON:OXIG) (AGM) Verici Dx (LON:VRCI) (AGM)	Barclays (LON:BARC) (Interims) Coats (LON:COA) (Interims) Croda International (LON:CRDA) (Interims) DSW Capital (LON:DSW) (Finals) Essentra (LON:ESNT) (Interims) Forterra (LON:FORT) (Interims) Games Workshop (LON:GAW) (Finals) GSK (LON:GSK) (Q2) Inchcape (LON:INCH) (Interims) Man (LON:EMG) (Interims) Restore (LON:RST) (Interims) Staffline (LON:STAF) (Interims) Unilever (LON:ULVR) (Interims) UTG (PNK:UTGN) (Interims)	Arm Holdings (LON:0ADF) BAE Systems (LON:BA.) Cadence Design Systems (NSQ:CDNS) Ford Motor Co (NYQ:F) KLA (NSQ:KLAC) Coca-Cola Co (NYQ:KO) Mondelez International (NSQ:MDLZ) Seagate Technology Holdings (NSQ:STX)
Wednesday 29 July	Acuity RM (LON:ACRM) (AGM) Dekel Agri-Vision (LON:DKL) (AGM) Jadestone Energy (LON:JSE) (TS) MITIE (LON:MTO) (AGM) PayPoint (LON:PAY) (AGM) Sage (LON:SGE) (TS) Triad (LON:TRD) (AGM) Zephyr Energy (LON:ZPHR) (AGM) Paragon Banking (LON:PAG) (TS)	Aberdeen (LON:ABDN) (Interims) Altitude (LON:ALT) (Finals) Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings (LON:AML) (Interims) Breedon (LON:BREE) (Interims) Conduit Holdings (LON:CRE) (Interims) Franchise Brands (LON:FRAN) (Interims) Greggs (LON:GRG) (Interims) Hargreaves Services (LON:HSP) (Finals) Hostelworld (LON:HSW) (Interims) International Personal Finance (LON:IPF) (Interims) Lancashire Holdings (LON:LRE) (Interims) Nichols (LON:NICL) (Interims) Rathbones (LON:RAT) (Interims) Reckitt Benckiser (LON:RKT) (Interims) Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) (Interims) SDI (LON:SDI) (Finals) Shaftesbury Capital (LON:SHC) (Interims) St Jamess Place (LON:STJ) (Interims) Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) (Interims) Weir (LON:WEIR) (Interims)	Amphenol (NYQ:APH) Automatic Data Processing (NSQ:ADP) Aon (NYQ:AON) Arm Holdings (NSQ:ARM) BAE Systems (LON:BA.)S (Germany) Etsy (NYQ:ETSY) Fiverr International (NYQ:FVRR) Heineken NV (AMS:HEIA) (Netherlands) Robinhood Markets (NSQ:HOOD) LEMONADE (NYQ:LMND) Meta Platforms (NSQ:META) Markel (NYQ:MKL) Microsoft (NSQ:MSFT) OReilly Automotive (NSQ:ORLY) Procter & Gamble Co (NYQ:PG) PUMA SE (ETR:PUM) (Germany) PayPal Holdings (NSQ:PYPL) Qualcomm (NSQ:QCOM) Banco Santander SA (MCE:SAN) (Spain) Starbucks (NSQ:SBUX)
Thursday 30 July	Active Energy (LON:AEG) (AGM) ASA International (LON:ASAI) (TS) Eurasia Mining (LON:EUA) (AGM) Maintel Holdings (LON:MAI) (AGM) Oakley Capital Investments (LON:OCI) (TS) Pets at Home (LON:PETS) (TS) Reabold Resources (LON:RBD) (AGM) Tatton Asset Management (LON:TAM) (AGM) Zegona Communications (LON:ZEG) (AGM)	AIB (LON:AIBG) (Interims) Anglo American (LON:AAL) (Interims) BAE Systems (LON:BA.). (Interims) British American Tobacco P.l.c (LON:BATS)  (Interims) Drax (LON:DRX) (Interims) Elementis (LON:ELM) (Interims) Endeavour Mining (LON:EDV) (Q2) Foxtons (LON:FOXT) (Interims) Hammerson (LON:HMSO) (Interims) Helios Towers (LON:HTWS) (Interims) Informa (LON:INF) (Interims) International Paper Co (LON:IPC) (Interims) Lloyds Banking (LON:LLOY) (Interims) London Stock Exchange (LON:LSEG) (Interims) Mondi (LON:MNDI) (Interims) Primary Health Properties (LON:PHP) (Interims) Rentokil Initial (LON:RTO) (Interims) Robert Walters (LON:RWA) (Interims) Rolls-Royce Holdings (LON:RR.). (Interims) Schroders (LON:SDR) (Interims) Seplat Energy (LON:SEPL) (Interims) SEGRO (LON:SGRO) (Interims) Shell (LON:SHEL) (Q2) Vanquis Banking (LON:VANQ) (Interims) Vesuvius (LON:VSVS) (Interims)	Apple (NSQ:AAPL) Clean Air Metals (CVE:AIR) (France) Amazon.com (NSQ:AMZN) Coinbase Global (NSQ:COIN) Eli Lilly and Co (NYQ:LLY) MasterCard (NYQ:MA) Nestle SA (SWX:NESN) (Switzerland) Netcall (LON:NET) Volkswagen AG (ETR:VOW3) (Germany)
Friday 31 July	Clean Power Hydrogen (LON:CPH2) (AGM) Cykel Ai (LON:CYKL) (AGM) Foresight group (LON:FSG) (AGM) Spectra Systems (LON:SPSY) (AGM) Team (NYQ:TISI) (AGM)	IG group (LON:IGG) (Interims) IMI (LON:IMI) (Interims) iA Financial (TSE:IAG) (Interims) Intertek (LON:ITRK) (Interims) ITV (LON:ITV) (Interims) Melrose Industries (LON:MRO) (Interims) Natwest (LON:NWG) (Interims) RHI Magnesita NV (LON:RHIM) (Interims) Rightmove (LON:RMV) (Interims) Taylor Wimpey (LON:TW.). (Interims)	Abbvie (NYQ:ABBV) Colgate-Palmolive Co (NYQ:CL) Chevron (NYQ:CVX) Eni SpA (BIT:ENI) (Spain) Phillips 66 (NYQ:PSX)

While AGMs (often with associated trading statements) continue to feature strongly in the UK news flow, we are also seeing results reporting hotting up, with many companies starting to get their interims to 30 June out to investors.

As usual, let us know via the comments if you think we've missed anything of note.

US Tech

Four of the Mag 7 are reporting next week, with Meta Platforms (NSQ:META) releasing Q2 results and Microsoft (NSQ:MSFT) Q4 after market close on Wednesday, and Amazon.com (NSQ:AMZN)'s Q2 and Apple (NSQ:AAPL)'s Q3 arriving after hours on Thursday.

AI capex spend versus revenue is likely to be a key focus for all three. Here is what to look out for:

Meta Platforms (NSQ:META)

• AI Capex guidance: After the Q1 release, Meta's stock saw a sharp next-day sell-off, primarily because management raised its full-year capital expenditure guidance to a staggering $125–$145 billion. Investors are demanding concrete evidence on how this infrastructure expenditure is converting into direct ad-targeting efficiency and monetisation.
• Advertising Health: Advertising demand across Instagram and Facebook remains a massive cash generator. Engagement metrics, specifically ad impressions and average pricing per ad, will be key to judging whether growth can successfully cushion the bottom-line compression from AI investments.
• New Cloud Venture? Rumours have intensified following reports from Bloomberg and The New York Times that Meta has held discussions to lease its massive computing power to third-party AI firms such as Anthropic. If confirmed on the call, an entry into the cloud computing infrastructure business could serve as a massive structural catalyst for the stock.

Microsoft (NSQ:MSFT)

• Azure Cloud & Supply Constraints: The single most critical line item is Azure's growth percentage. Investors will want to know whether Microsoft's cloud segment met its 39%–40% growth guidance, or whether ongoing AI capacity constraints and data centre supply limits are capping the platform's short-term upside.
• AI Spending Visibility: In its previous quarter, Microsoft also spooked the market despite beating estimates by signalling a massive $190 billion capital expenditure plan for calendar year 2026. Because high component costs continue to compress cloud margins, the market wants clear, long-term ROI guidance to trust that these investments make sense.
• Copilot Commercial Monetisation: Investors also want concrete evidence that enterprise AI adoptions are driving revenue across all software platforms. After revealing that Copilot paid seats surged by more than 250% year-over-year in Q3, management needs to demonstrate steady user conversion and rising ARPU.

Apple (NSQ:AAPL)

• iPhone 17 Momentum Analysts model iPhone revenue between $55 billion and $57 billion. However, Global chip shortages and elevated memory costs are reducing hardware production margins. In response, they rolled out broad price hikes at the end of June, and how this impacted consumer demand will be vital.
• Services Runway: Services revenue is forecast to reach a new milestone of $31 billion to $32 billion. Growth is fueled by core cloud ecosystem monetisation, such as the App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud. However, recurring subscription packages built around Apple Intelligence will be the drivers for multi-year expansion, and invetsors will want to see strong progress here.
• Hardware Supply Strains: iPad numbers should show solid year-over-year growth following recent refreshes. However, component bottlenecks continue to restrict top-line output for specialised, high-tier Mac lines like the MacBook Neo. Component sourcing to meet demand remains key.
• Leasing Rollout: Apple's new device leasing programme, designed to lock consumers into faster device turnover, is a demand-accelerator. Look out for forward-looking guidance on this.

Amazon.com (NSQ:AMZN)

• AWS Growth and AI Monetisation: Amazon Web Services is under massive scrutiny. Investors want to see cloud revenue growth sustain momentum and reaccelerate towards the target 25% to 28% range as customers ramp up enterprise AI workloads via platforms like Amazon Bedrock.
• Skyrocketing AI Capex: Chief Executive Andy Jassy previously signalled a massive $200 billion capital expenditure plan for 2026 focused on data centre footprints. Analysts have warned that high memory and semiconductor hardware costs could prompt management to raise full-year capex projections further, to $210 billion, negatively impacting forecast returns on investment.
• Core Retail and Prime Day Shift: Margins in the North American and International retail sectors will be key. The Prime Day shift to June will have led to very strong Q2 sales. The big question is how profitable it has been; have margins held up despite the high promotional and delivery expenses incurred?

Rolls-Royce Holdings (LON:RR.)

Rolls-Royce will announce its 2026 Half-Year Results on Thursday. This stock has been a huge winner for investors over the last few years:

It enters the current reporting period with continued momentum and is up roughly 18% year-to-date, no doubt helped by a pattern of continuous broker upgrades:

However, it no longer looks good value on any of the key metrics, and its Value Rank has dropped to just 9:

It remains a high flyer, but the pressure is now on to deliver numbers that lead to further upgrades to maintain the upward trajectory.

Things to look out for are:

• Civil Aerospace Engine Flying Hours: The primary driver of Rolls-Royce's profitability is maintenance revenue from its large commercial engines. Investors will look for confirmation that large engine flying hours are tracking at or above 100%–110% of 2019 pre-pandemic baselines, fueled by robust international summer travel. This is one area where the recent oil price spike has
• Share Buybacks: Following record profits earlier in the year, Rolls-Royce announced a massive £7 billion to £9 billion long-term share buyback program. Look for progress updates on the £2.5 billion tranche scheduled for 2026, of which over £750 million had already been completed by spring.
• Operating Margin Improvements: CEO Tufan Erginbilgic's strict transformation programme has consistently squeezed greater efficiency from the business. The key will be whether Civil Aerospace margins can expand further from their prior high teens, despite global aerospace supply chain disruptions and component shortages.

Balance Sheet Improvements: A shift to net cash led to dual credit rating upgrades to A3 (Moody's) and A- (Fitch) earlier this year. Any managemnet commentary on additional debt reduction, such as the recent €750 million bond repayment, will further build confidence.