JPM | US MACRO THEMATICS - What Matters this Week / EPS Defined by Expectations / CPI‘s Impact on Equities / Oil‘s Grey Area

Research evidence excerpt

JPM | US MACRO THEMATICS - What Matters this Week / EPS Defined by Expectations / CPI‘s Impact on Equities / Oil‘s Grey Area

Specialist Sales

US Specialist Sales J P M O R G A N

14 July 2026

JPM | US MACRO THEMATICS - What Matters this Week / EPS

Defined by Expectations / CPI’s Impact on Equities / Oil’s Grey

Area

Marissa Gitler

+1 212 622 2934

marissa.gitler@jpmorgan.com

US Thematics focuses on key macro views, market debates, and favored investment themes.

Bottom Line: Tuesday’s macro landscape was defined by three converging forces: a cleaner-than-expected disinflation

signal, a complex earnings season, and a tactically firmer oil market, none of which are individually decisive.The CPI print

was the week’s pivotal event, delivering a broad-based downside surprise (headline -0.4% MoM, core flat) that

effectively removed July from the Fed’s live meeting calendar while keeping September on the table (in absence of a

material upside surprise in PPI tomorrow). For equities, the print mattered more through the volatility channel (decline in

event-risk) than any direct rates-related transmission.

The earnings setup is materially more complex than Q1 as elevated positioning in Tech Hardware and Semis has driven

meaningful dislocations between fundamentals and prices across sectors. This sets the stage for an environment in which the

reaction to the prints are will be just as important for the macro read as the prints themselves. Energy (ex-refiners) stands out

as the most underappreciated sector, sitting at a sweet spot of low expectations and an improving fundamental backdrop.

What actually matters today (and this week):

While geopolitical back and forth continues to dominate headlines, the translation into equity market movement has so far

been fairly minimal.