Thursday, July 23rd, 2026
Markets got pummeled today, not on Q2 earnings results or Weekly Jobless Claims, which were mostly terrific, but on international spot oil prices — Brent crude — crossed the psychologically important $100 per barrel (/bbl), up +7% today. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose over +6% to $92/bbl. A dozen straight days of bombing Iran and now the Yemen-based Houthis attacking Saudi ships have turned our “four to six week war” into a sinking albatross now five months along.
The Dow shed another -506 points today, -0.97%, while the S&P 500 did even worse: -90 points or -1.21%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was the worst of the worst today — -553 points, -2.15% — while the small-cap Russell 2000 slid by only down -19 points, -0.67%. Part of this pullback in tech stems from the extraordinarily large AI capex spending from companies like Alphabet GOOGL, which reported negative cash flow for the first time in its publicly traded history.
Intel Shines in Q2, FIX and DECK Also Report Earnings
Chip-making giant and Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) Intel INTC may have just posted the strongest quarterly numbers in this Q2 earnings season: 42 cents per share doubled the 21 cents in the Zacks consensus, which itself was a +310% earnings growth increase from the -$0.10 per share reported in the year-ago quarter. Revenues in the quarter grew +25% year over year to $16.1 billion, well above the $14.41 billion analysts were estimating — the company’s strongest revenue growth in 15 years.
Guidance for the present quarter also impressed: Intel is looking for $0.31-0.38 per share in Q3, well above the $0.25 expected. Revenues of $15.8-16.8 billion is much stronger than the $15.08 billion consensus estimate. Gross margins are projected to come in at +42%. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan called it “unprecedented demand for compute.” Shares of INTC raced higher by +11% after the release, but has since simmered down to +5.5% growth.
Another AI tech firm also reported “unprecedented,” record-setting results in its Q2 report this afternoon. Comfort Systems FIX — no, not a mattress company; they provide cooling systems to the AI chips — reported earnings of $12.53 per share, nicely ahead of the $10.38 estimate from analysts. Revenues of $3.27 billion surged +50.3% year over year, well above the $2.94 billion in the Zacks consensus. These are all record numbers for the company, as is crossing over $1 billion in cash flow in the quarter. Shares are down a tad in the after-market, but are up +96% year to date.
Shoe brand parent Deckers Outdoors DECK also outperformed on earnings after today’s closing bell, but much more modestly: earnings of 94 cents per share versus 88 cents expected. Revenues just met estimates of $1.02 billion in the quarter. Full-year earnings guidance was in-range with earlier forecasts. The Hoka running shoe grew +7.7% in the quarter while UGG gained +4.9%. All other brands collectively were down -18.1%. Shares are down -7% on the news, doubling the company’s losses year to date.
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