The Week Ahead (6 Jul – 10 Jul): Fed Minutes & the Hawkish Pivot, Tech Rebound?

1. Market Recap

US payrolls data landed a day early this week – Thursday rather than the usual first Friday of the month, with US markets shut Friday for Independence Day – and it delivered the week's defining surprise.

June's Employment Situation report showed non-farm payrolls rose by just 57,000, less than half the roughly 115,000 consensus. The unemployment rate actually fell to 4.2% – 10 basis points below expectations – but for the wrong reasons: labour force participation slumped 0.3 points to 61.5%, its lowest since March 2021. April and May payrolls were revised down by a combined 74,000 – May's initial print had been a big upside surprise.

In short, no one at the Fed is cancelling their holidays. “Hiring is stable, but broadly unimpressive” was Rick Rieder's read at BlackRock – not strong enough to hike, but thinking about cuts now would be overly exuberant.

Unemployment rate and monthly NFP change, source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

The market's reaction was relatively muted at first, but tech stocks – already nursing wounds from Wednesday's session, when new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh used the ECB's Sintra forum to call inflation “still too high” – sold off again into Thursday's close. Chip stocks bore the brunt of the week's selling as the AI trade wobbled, with Sandisk falling over 10% in two consecutive sessions (Micron wasn’t far behind). Investors will be eyeing a recovery when markets reopen on Monday, and Tuesday's Penguin Solutions print (see below) is the first real test.

The wider backdrop was set well before Thursday's print:

• Sintra forum (29 Jun–1 Jul): Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, ECB President Christine Lagarde and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey all spoke. The Fed's own dot plot has turned more hawkish since new leadership arrived – the median year-end rate projection implies a hike rather than a cut. As of Wednesday, markets priced roughly an 80% chance of at least one hike before 2027 – odds that will have slipped after Thursday's payrolls.
• No UK cuts: Bailey used his own Sintra remarks to say UK rate cuts remain “off the table” because households have yet to feel the full effect of the energy shock. The Iran war continues to reshape the inflation backdrop despite oil prices falling roughly 29% in the month of June.
• FTSE’s winning run: The FTSE 100 closed out Q2 with a sixth consecutive quarterly gain (+3%, its best run since 2022). The index faded on Wednesday before pushing above 10,650 following the US jobs data on Thursday.

And a report from Thursday afternoon: European nations accept Hormuz Strait fees as inevitable, with the toll being paid to Iran and Oman. Brent was hovering above $70 on Thursday afternoon and WTI at $67.5 – that’s a relatively small gap between the seaborne benchmark and WTI compared with March.

Source: TradingEconomics

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

2. Economic Calendar

Quiet week for UK-specific data — the calendar is dominated by the Fed and global inflation reads, with Wednesday's FOMC June minutes the key event. All times BST (UK time).

Day	Time	Region	Release
Monday 6 Jul	10:00 15:00	Eurozone US	Retail Sales ISM Services PMI
Tuesday 7 Jul	07:00	UK	Halifax House Price Index MoM
Wednesday 8 Jul	19:00	US	FOMC June meeting minutes
Thursday 9 Jul	02:30 07:00 15:00	China Germany US	CPI Balance of Trade Existing Home Sales
Friday 10 Jul	07:00 13:30	Germany Canada	Inflation rate Unemployment rate

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3. Macro Theme Deep-Dives

Fed Minutes & the Hawkish Pivot

The Fed left rates unchanged again at its June meeting, but the accompanying dot plot moved sharply: the median year-end rate projection rose, implying one more 25bp hike rather than the cut markets had been positioned for, and language about a willingness to cut “if needed” was dropped entirely. New Chair Kevin Warsh, presiding over his first meeting, framed the shift as reaffirming the Fed's commitment to price stability.

Fed Funds Rate: Market-implied year-end rate expectations. Source: CME FedWatch

Wednesday's minutes (19:00 BST) will give us more data. The question is whether they show genuine consensus behind the hawkish dot-plot shift or a committee reluctantly following Warsh's lead – Thursday's soft jobs report may now sit awkwardly alongside a hiking bias.

China CPI

China's consumer prices have been essentially flat for over a year. May's print came in at -0.1% month-on-month (+1.2% year-on-year), part of a persistent disinflationary pattern that has held through most of 2025 and 2026 despite periodic policy support.

Source: Trading Economics

Thursday's release (02:30 BST) matters beyond China's own borders: as the world's largest commodity buyer, China's demand sets the marginal price for everything from iron ore to crude. Wholesale prices returned to growth in March as input costs surged on the back of the Iran war. This ended one of the longest deflationary streaks in decades. Consumer prices haven't followed – households are keeping hold of their hard-earned renminbi. Thursday’s print will let us know if this is deepening.

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4. Companies Reporting

Date	UK Trading Updates & AGMs	UK Financial Results	International Financial Results
Monday 6 Jul	Marks & Spencer Group (LON:MKS) (AGM) Sirius Real Estate (LON:SRE) (AGM) Finsbury Growth & Income Trust (LON:FGT) (General Meeting)	BTG Consulting (LON:BTG) (Finals) One Health Group (LON:OHGR) (Finals)
Tuesday 7 Jul	Coro Energy (LON:CORO) (AGM) Pacific Assets Trust (LON:PAC) (AGM)		Penguin Solutions (NSQ:PENG)
Wednesday 8 Jul	Pennon Group (LON:PNN) (Trading Update) (AGM) Unite Group (LON:UTG) (Trading Update) B.P Marsh & Partners (LON:BPM) (AGM) Capital Gearing Trust (LON:CGT) (AGM) Next 15 Group (LON:NFG) (AGM) Pri0r1ty Intelligence Group (LON:PR1) (AGM) Rift Helium (LON:RIFT) (AGM)	Jet2 (LON:JET2) (Finals) System1 Group (LON:SYS1) (Finals)
Thursday 9 Jul	Ondo Insurtech (LON:ONDO) (General Meeting) Tern plc (LON:TERN) (General Meeting) Bytes Technology Group (LON:BYIT) (AGM) Land Securities Group (LON:LAND) (AGM) LondonMetric Property (LON:LMP) (AGM) Octopus Apollo VCT (LON:OAP3) (AGM) Pets At Home Group (LON:PETS) (AGM) Severn Trent (LON:SVT) (AGM)		PepsiCo (NSQ:PEP)
Friday 10 Jul	SDCL Efficiency Income Trust (LON:SEIT) (General Meeting) C & C Group (LON:CCR) (AGM)		Delta Air Lines (NYQ:DAL)

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

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5. Stock Deep-Dives

Penguin Solutions (NSQ:PENG)

Penguin Solutions reports Q3 FY26 results on Tuesday. The stock has been one of the year's standout AI-infrastructure momentum plays -- up 184% over the past 12 months -- but it fell 10.7% on Thursday, its sharpest one-day drop in months. The stock goes into the print with shares 140% above their 200-day moving average.

Even after Thursday's fall, this isn't a cheap stock on conventional multiples: forward 12- month P/E of 22.3x, EV-to-EBITDA of 20.9x, price-to-sales of 2.3x.

Consensus has normalised EPS climbing from $0.79 (TTM) to $2.23 in FY26 and $2.81 in FY27 -- the bull case rests almost entirely on that ramp landing. Analysts have forecast normalised EPS of $0.56 on $421.3m of revenue for Q3 FY26. This would represent a 19.7% EPS increase YoY. That’s not massive for a stock that’s run up this quick.

Stockopedia's own broker consensus price target ($50.14) actually sits 15% below Thursday's close. More bullish independent analysis circulating argues for meaningfully higher 2027 EPS and a $100+ target -- a sign of how wide the range of outcomes is on this name heading into Tuesday.

Things to watch:

• Integrated Memory momentum: this segment has been the clear growth engine this year, with management flagging material availability -- not demand -- as the main constraint. Whether that pricing and demand backdrop held through the quarter is the first thing to check.
• The Advanced Computing “reset”: reported revenue in this division has looked weak as the company steps back from hyperscaler concentration and winds down its Penguin Edge unit. Management has pointed to a growing share of non-hyperscale AI/HPC business as evidence this is a quality shift.
• MemoryAI and CXL: Penguin's newer memory products target the industry's shift from AI training to AI inference, which is more memory intensive. Any concrete customer wins or order momentum disclosed on the call will be read as validation (or not) of that longer-term positioning.

Jet2 (LON:JET2)

Jet2 reports full-year results (year to 31 March) on Wednesday. Shares are down roughly 30% over the past year and closer to the bottom of the 52-week range than the top. That’s despite the company already pre-guiding FY26 operating profit to £435m–£440m in an April trading update -- broadly in line with expectations.

Jet2 trades on a trailing P/E of around 5.9x with a net cash position of £800m on a £2.5bn market cap. Analysts often mistakenly include the company’s deferred revenues within the net cash figure, but either way, the balance sheet is still rock solid.

Consensus target sits at 1,480p, implying over 12% upside.

Things to watch:

• Update on guidance: Confirmation of FY26 operating profit landing within the guided £435m–£440m range, but more importantly, any early colour on FY27: Summer 2026 capacity is already up 7.7% to 19.9m seats with bookings up 6.2% -- the market wants proof strong demand is holding into the new year, not just that FY26 came in as flagged.

• The Gatwick base ramp: Jet2's new London Gatwick operation (0.4m passengers already booked for summer) is running ahead of plan and is the clearest template for further UK base expansion -- updates on its trajectory will probably matter more than the headline FY26 number.

• An update on costs: In April it said that 87% of its summer jet fuel requirements were hedged amid the jet fuel crisis. Jet fuel prices are now on their way down, but the crack spread remains elevated. Management commentary on this large component of operating costs will be important.

Source: S&P Global Energy Platts