Updated Friday 24 July 2026. This page is refreshed every week with the events that will actually move markets, and why. Live prices are on the dashboard; the full data calendar is here.
This is one of the heaviest weeks of the year. Three major central banks decide policy within 48 hours, the US prints second-quarter GDP and June PCE inflation on the same morning, and four of the five largest companies in the world report earnings into a market that has just shown it will sell a capex-heavy quarter first and ask questions later. After Tesla fell 15 per cent and Alphabet 7 per cent, the bar for Microsoft, Meta, Apple and Amazon is not whether the numbers are good, but whether the spending behind them still gets the benefit of the doubt.
The week at a glance
| Day | Key events (UK time) |
|---|---|
| Mon 27 Jul | US durable goods (1:30pm). Earnings: AstraZeneca, Vodafone, Cadence |
| Tue 28 Jul | FOMC begins. US consumer confidence (3:00pm). Earnings: Visa, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Barclays, GSK, Unilever |
| Wed 29 Jul | Fed decision 7:00pm, press conference 7:30pm. BoE money and credit data (9:30am). Earnings after US close: Microsoft, Meta; also Qualcomm, Arm, Starbucks, Rio Tinto, Standard Chartered |
| Thu 30 Jul | Bank of England decision 12:00pm. US Q2 GDP and June PCE inflation, both 1:30pm. Eurozone Q2 GDP (10:00am), German CPI. Earnings: Samsung full results, Shell, Lloyds, Rolls-Royce, Mastercard; after US close: Apple, Amazon |
| Fri 31 Jul | Bank of Japan decision (early hours UK). US employment cost index (1:30pm). Eurozone July flash CPI (10:00am). China PMIs. Earnings: ExxonMobil, Chevron, NatWest, IAG |
The Fed: a hike is genuinely on the table
The FOMC announces at 7:00pm UK time on Wednesday, with Chair Warsh’s press conference at 7:30pm. The target range stands at 3.50 to 3.75 per cent, and this is not a cut debate: markets price roughly a one-in-three chance of a 25 basis point hike this week, with a hike fully priced by the September meeting. The case rests on PCE inflation running at 3.7 per cent through June, more than five years above target, and an oil price that has risen by roughly a third in July alone. The committee has been openly split since the summer, a story we traced in pricing the September hike, and the new tariff schedule that took effect on 24 July adds a fresh inflation impulse for the statement to acknowledge. There is no dot plot at this meeting, so the press conference carries the signal. A hawkish hold is the base case; the risk the market is underpricing is not the decision itself but how little Warsh may push back on September.
The Bank of England: a hold with hawks circling
The MPC announces at midday on Thursday alongside a full Monetary Policy Report. Bank Rate sits at 3.75 per cent and a hold is widely expected, but the vote split matters: two members voted to hike in June, and one of them, chief economist Huw Pill, has since said publicly that rates will need to rise. Markets price two hikes by March 2027. The decision lands on a gilt market already strained by the new government’s fiscal signalling, with the 10-year yield above 5 per cent, the highest in the G7, a dynamic we covered in the bond market greets Prime Minister Burnham and its property-market consequences in the new policy premium. Watch the MPC’s language on energy: UK CPI eased to 2.6 per cent in June, but the July oil move happened after that reading was taken.
The Bank of Japan: the yen sets the stakes
The BoJ concludes its meeting in the early hours of Friday UK time, publishing its quarterly Outlook Report with Governor Ueda’s press conference around 7:30am. The policy rate stands at 1.00 per cent, the highest since 1995, after June’s hike. A hold is expected, but this is the meeting with the widest error bars: the yen is trading near a 40-year low with USD/JPY pinned close to the 160 level that has previously triggered intervention, and Bloomberg reported this week that the Bank is open to a faster pace of hikes precisely because the weak currency is feeding inflation. The Outlook Report’s inflation forecasts are the tell. If they move up, so does the probability that the world’s last great carry-trade funding currency keeps getting more expensive, mechanics explained in the yen carry trade.
The data: growth and inflation on the same morning
Thursday at 1:30pm UK time is the week’s data moment: the advance estimate of US second-quarter GDP and the June PCE inflation report land simultaneously, an unusual pairing that hands the market a growth number and the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge in one release window, less than a day after the FOMC decision. Friday’s second-quarter employment cost index matters nearly as much, since labour costs are the channel through which an oil shock becomes persistent inflation. Europe has its own heavy Thursday: eurozone second-quarter GDP and German inflation, followed by the eurozone flash CPI for July on Friday, the first reading the ECB will study after its hawkish July hold. The July US jobs report follows on Friday 7 August.
Earnings: the AI capex referendum
Wednesday night brings Microsoft and Meta, Thursday night Apple and Amazon. Between them sit Samsung’s full second-quarter results early Thursday, following preliminary numbers the market already sold, plus a dense UK slate topped by Shell, Lloyds, Rolls-Royce and NatWest, and the oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron on Friday reporting into $100 Brent. The question for the megacaps is singular: after Alphabet raised capex guidance towards $205 billion and printed its first negative free cash flow quarter of the AI era, will Microsoft, Meta and Amazon confirm that the build-out keeps accelerating regardless of what it does to near-term cash flow? The semiconductor market has already voted with its feet, as we covered in Intel’s beat that landed in a bear market. Guidance, not results, will decide whether last week’s selloff was a correction or the start of a repricing.
Also on the radar
OPEC+ meets on Sunday 2 August to set September quotas, having raised production for a fifth consecutive month even as Strait of Hormuz transits run at a fraction of pre-war levels, the insurance mechanics of which we unpacked in the invisible blockade. The new US tariff schedule faces its first week of implementation and court challenges. And the US Treasury’s quarterly refunding announcement on 5 August looms over a bond market already at 52-week-high yields, with credit spreads at record tights leaving little cushion if rates keep rising.
What we are watching
1. How hard Warsh pushes back, or does not, on a September hike. 2. Whether megacap capex guidance accelerates again despite the market’s new scepticism. 3. The BoJ’s inflation forecasts, with USD/JPY at the intervention line.
The deepest analysis of whatever moves most will appear in the analysis archive during the week, and the biggest piece goes to subscribers by email. Event times are UK time and can shift; the live calendar always has the latest. Nothing on this page is investment advice.