Apple is scheduled to report its fiscal third-quarter results after the market closes on Thursday, July 30, 2026. Here is what I will be watching—and why a perfectly respectable quarter may no longer be enough for the stock. I have followed Apple long enough to recognise the ritual. A few days before earnings, Wall Street suddenly develops the emotional stability of a toddler who has been handed the wrong colour cup. Analysts revise estimates by pennies. Traders dissect supplier comments like intelligence officers decoding enemy communications. Every rumour about iPhone demand becomes either proof of an approaching supercycle or confirmation that civilisation has lost interest in smartphones. Then Apple reports billions of dollars in quarterly profit, and the market complains about something management said during minute 47 of the conference call. This quarter arrives with especially high expectations. Apple shares recently traded around $337, giving the company a market value approach...
Meta Platforms reports its second-quarter 2026 results after the market closes on July 29, and I will be watching the numbers for something larger than the usual earnings spectacle. Yes, I care about revenue. I care about margins, earnings per share, capital expenditures, engagement, artificial intelligence, Reels, WhatsApp, Reality Labs, and whatever new phrase management has invented to make spending several small nations’ annual budgets on data centers sound soothing. But the number I care about most is advertising revenue. Meta’s advertising business is one of the most useful real-time windows into the global economy. It collects signals from millions of businesses making daily decisions about whether to spend, where to spend, whom to target, and how aggressively to pursue the next customer. Advertising is corporate confidence translated into an auction. When companies feel good about demand, they bid for attention. When they become nervous, they cut experimental campaigns, tighten...