As we have seen in Junes past, the Fab Five tend to end with a whimper and then have a robust July and August after 2Q earnings reassure investors that cash flow forecasts are intact. We think that this year introduces additional uncertainty as capital spending/ debt/ equity raises increase, but strongly believe that the theme will be “can’t keep up” as opposed to “can’t find demand.”
Overall, the Fab Five lost $848 billion this week ($630 billion over the last fortnight) and have lost $652 billion for the year. This is led by Microsoft who has the highest exposure of the Five to traditional software profits/ cash flows. Meta and Microsoft make up the enirety of losses for the group ($1.1 trillion).
The Telco Top Five were small buying recipients from tech and chip selling last week. Each of the Telco Top Five rose this week ($15 billion in total for the group; YTD still down $36 billion). Outside of Verizon’s acquisition of regional operator Carolina West (Fierce Network’s article here), there wasn’t a lot of needle-moving news. The AWS-3 wireless license auction finished last week, with Verizon apparently the big winner (88% of the winning bids belonged to Big Red). More on where they picked up licenses in this analysis from Broadband Breakfast.
We will be spending more time with economic issues in the Holiday Brief next weekend, but want to note three items from the past week that will influence 2Q GDP, CPI and PPI figures:
- Gas and diesel prices are falling (our estimate is a 13% decline will be shown in the June inflation report based on last week’s estimates). AAA reports a 13% month over month decline to $3.87/ gallon for regular unleaded and a 12% decline in diesel to $4.887. These levels represent a 21% and 32% increase from pricing a year earlier. This could lead to a very unusual report where the monthly inflation rate is low/zero/negative but the year-over-year figure is still high;
- The final read on Q1 GDP was 2.1% which was actually 0.1% higher than the final read on Q1 2025 (which was impacted by tariff uncertainty). More on the growth components here. As of last Friday, the Atlanta Fed was projecting a 2.5% real GDP growth for the second quarter. We think that oil exports are being undercounted and that the actual figure will be around 3.1% (also higher than 2Q 2025);
- We beat the drum a lot about regional growth/ employment differences and cannot help but point out the declines in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia (through May) in the recently released jobs report. Collectively they total 120K. The remaining seventeen states who posted employment losses over the last 12 months totaled 89K. The impact of DOGE cuts on the Mid-Atlantic economy is masking the rapid growth in nearby areas (while Maryland’s economy still struggles, Ohio and Pennsylvania are both booming, adding 48K net new jobs in the last 12 months).
As we stated in last week’s full Brief, we will have three new videos/ long reads for you to analyze in the July 5th edition. Hoping everyone has a safe and restful Fourth of July holiday! File is below.
