Good Afternoon. On this day in 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment by a one-vote margin, completing national ratification and securing women’s constitutional right to vote. One decisive vote changed the rules; Tuesday’s economy didn’t offer the same clarity. Housing starts fell, factories edged forward, small home projects held up, and AI winners gave back ground.

That’s today’s split screen. Demand hasn’t disappeared, but it’s becoming more specific, and investors aren’t giving every growth story the benefit of the doubt. Whether you’re planning a renovation, a hiring budget, or a new data center, proof of use matters more when money and materials remain expensive.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

🔢 Big number: 707,000 — that’s the estimated number of open jobs in the United Kingdom from May through July, the lowest outside the pandemic period since late 2014. Hiring hasn’t stopped, but smaller businesses say labor and operating costs are making each opening a tougher decision.

America’s housing shortage didn’t get an easy answer in July. Builders started fewer homes even as permits moved higher, leaving a gap between projects that may happen and homes that are actually moving through construction. That’s a warning for buyers, contractors, suppliers, and local governments counting on more inventory.

The news: Housing starts fell 12.4% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.239 million, and they were 13.5% below July 2025. Single-family starts declined to an 808,000 pace, while completions fell to 1.212 million. The forward-looking side looked better: permits rose 5.0% to a 1.443 million annual rate, including a 2.5% increase for single-family homes. A permit isn’t a finished house, though, and the report’s margins of error mean one month shouldn’t carry the entire outlook.

What’s next: More permits can support future supply only if financing, labor, land, and buyer demand let projects begin. Builders can phase developments and preserve cash, while buyers shouldn’t assume today’s slower starts will create immediate bargains. Watch whether permits become starts during the next few reports; the conversion rate will show whether builders are preparing for a thaw or simply keeping options open.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Home Depot’s customers aren’t rushing back into major renovations, but they haven’t abandoned the house. Smaller outdoor jobs, maintenance, and repair work helped sales grow through a frozen housing market. That distinction matters: necessity can support a retailer even when confidence isn’t strong enough for a new kitchen or an addition.

The news: Quarterly revenue rose 5.7% to $47.86 billion, ahead of the $47.24 billion expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet. Comparable sales increased 1.7% globally and 1.3% in the United States. Customer transactions fell 1.0%, but the average receipt climbed to $92.50 from $90.01. Adjusted earnings reached $4.92 per share, and management kept its full-year outlook unchanged. The company’s results show customers are willing to fix what needs attention, yet they’re still postponing larger discretionary work while mortgage rates and affordability limit home sales.

Bottom line: A bigger receipt can’t replace healthy traffic forever, so the quality of demand matters as much as the sales total. Contractors and suppliers should plan for a market led by repair and modest upgrades rather than a broad renovation boom. Wednesday’s Lowe’s results and future housing data will show whether this pattern belongs to one retailer or the whole home-improvement aisle.

Source: Associated Press

U.S. industry grew again in July, but the gain wasn’t evenly distributed. Business equipment and construction supplies strengthened while consumer goods weakened, suggesting companies are still investing in capacity and tools even as household-facing production becomes more cautious. The economy hasn’t stopped building; it’s choosing where to build.

The news: It’s a selective mix: industrial production and manufacturing output each rose 0.2% from June. Business-equipment production increased 0.8%, construction supplies gained 0.8%, and defense and space equipment advanced 1.8%. Consumer-goods output fell 0.4%, including a 1.4% decline in durable goods for households, while motor vehicles and parts fell 2.1%. Total capacity utilization edged up to 76.3%, still 3.1 percentage points below its long-run average, so the industrial system has room before demand becomes a broad capacity constraint.

Big picture: Spare capacity can help businesses add output without immediately building another plant, but it also means producers can’t assume pricing power will follow every new order. The strongest opportunities are where demand is already funded—equipment, construction inputs, and defense—rather than where a household must take on another large purchase. Watch new orders and utilization together; growth is sturdier when factories are both busier and building a reliable backlog.

Source: Federal Reserve

The cost of goods crossing America’s borders moved lower in July, but the relief came mostly from fuel. Strip energy out, and import prices kept rising, including for capital goods and food. That’s why a softer headline doesn’t automatically mean companies can stop reviewing suppliers or households can expect broad price relief.

The news: It’s another split report: import prices fell 0.4% during July after a 0.3% decline in June, while export prices dropped 1.3%. Fuel-import prices declined 7.2%, including a 7.5% decrease for petroleum products, but nonfuel import prices rose 0.4%. Capital-goods import prices increased 0.9%, helped by computers, semiconductors, machinery, and aircraft. Food, feed, and beverage import prices also rose 0.9%. Over the past year, overall import prices were still up 5.9%, and nonfuel imports were 4.5% higher.

What’s next: Fuel can make a monthly average look friendlier without lowering the cost of the equipment, ingredients, or components a business needs. Companies should separate energy savings from underlying supplier inflation before changing budgets or customer prices. The next test is persistence: if nonfuel prices stay firm while oil rebounds, the temporary offset can vanish and put margins back under pressure.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wall Street’s biggest growth theme ran into another round of skepticism Tuesday. AI-related stocks had already delivered enormous gains, so investors didn’t need evidence that demand had vanished; they only needed a reason to question whether today’s prices left enough room for slower adoption, heavier spending, or a future increase in chip supply.

The news: The S&P 500 was down close to 0.6% in afternoon trading, the Dow slipped close to 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell close to 1.2%. Micron, one of the year’s largest AI beneficiaries, was down close to 7.6% and weighed heavily on the broader market. The selloff followed repeated swings in memory and data-center shares as investors debated whether current demand can translate into enough customer profit to justify years of infrastructure spending. Home Depot’s stronger quarter offered a counterpoint, but it wasn’t enough to lift the broader market.

Bottom line: A strong industry can still produce a weak day when expectations outrun the evidence available, and that doesn’t require demand to collapse. Businesses buying AI infrastructure should define the labor saved, revenue created, or risk reduced before adding another contract. Investors should separate product demand from valuation: the first can remain healthy while the second adjusts sharply. Upcoming results and capital-spending plans will matter most when they connect usage to durable cash flow.

Source: Associated Press

The United Kingdom’s labor market is holding together without feeling especially generous. Employment, unemployment, and inactivity barely moved, but payrolls and vacancies softened while private-sector wage growth slowed. That mix can cool inflation over time, though it also leaves workers with fewer openings and employers with less confidence.

The news: It’s a stable headline with softer details: the unemployment rate was 4.9% from April through June, down 0.1 percentage point from the prior quarter but up 0.2 point from a year earlier. Payrolled employment fell by 37,000 during the quarter and by 86,000 from a year earlier. Estimated vacancies declined by 6,000 to 707,000 from May through July, with smaller businesses pointing to labor and operating costs as reasons not to hire or replace departures. Regular pay grew 3.5%, but private-sector regular pay rose only 2.8%, compared with 6.1% in the public sector. Inflation-adjusted regular pay increased just 0.5% using the broader consumer-price measure.

What’s next: A stable unemployment rate can hide a market where it takes longer to find the next job and smaller employers replace fewer people. Workers may want a larger cash buffer before changing roles, while businesses should protect the people and skills they can’t easily replace. Wednesday’s inflation report will help determine whether slower private pay gives the Bank of England room to wait or whether household purchasing power remains too thin.

Source: Office for National Statistics

Baidu’s AI businesses are becoming large enough to reshape the company, but they haven’t yet replaced the revenue lost from older advertising products. That’s the uncomfortable middle of a transition: the new engine can grow quickly while the total business still moves backward and investment keeps consuming attention.

The news: Quarterly revenue fell 4% from a year earlier to 31.3 billion yuan, while net income attributable to Baidu was 2.3 billion yuan. Baidu Core’s AI-powered businesses generated 12.5 billion yuan, up 25%, and represented half of its general-business revenue. AI cloud infrastructure rose 50% to 7.3 billion yuan, including 283% growth in GPU cloud revenue. Those gains didn’t erase a 19% decline in online marketing services. Operating cash flow remained positive for a fourth straight quarter at 3.4 billion yuan, giving management more room to keep investing through the transition.

Big picture: A legacy business can finance its replacement only while the old cash stream remains dependable enough and the new one becomes profitable enough. Baidu’s useful scorecard isn’t merely AI growth; it’s whether cloud, applications, and autonomous driving can offset advertising pressure without weakening cash generation. Watch operating margin and repeat cloud demand alongside revenue, because a successful reinvention has to improve the company’s economics, not just its vocabulary.

Source: Baidu

BHP’s portfolio is starting to look less like a traditional iron-ore story and more like a long-term bet on electrification. Copper produced more than half of underlying operating earnings for the first time, helping the miner reduce debt, fund new projects, and return more cash. The opportunity is large, but it depends on disciplined execution across several countries and long timelines.

The news: It’s the balance sheet behind the strategy: full-year underlying operating earnings rose to roughly $33 billion, supported by record iron-ore production and shipments in Western Australia and about two million metric tons of copper output for a second straight year. Net debt fell below $9 billion, and the company declared a final dividend of 99 cents per share, its largest in four years. Management says its copper projects across Chile, Australia, and Argentina could lift production by about 40% by fiscal 2035. The company also expects first production from its Canadian potash project in the middle of 2027.

What’s next: Copper demand may benefit from grids, data centers, vehicles, and industrial electrification, yet mines don’t arrive on a software schedule. BHP must manage permitting, construction, local partnerships, safety, and commodity cycles before that projected growth becomes cash. Watch project approvals and spending against output milestones; the strategy works best if today’s strong copper business can fund tomorrow’s expansion without forcing debt back up.

Source: BHP

Q: Why’d the building permit bring a ruler?

A: It’d hoped every plan would measure up.

the share of gross monthly income required to cover recurring debt payments, which lenders use to judge borrowing capacity.

In a sentence: A buyer’s debt-to-income ratio doesn’t improve just because more homes receive permits, so affordable financing still decides which plans become purchases.

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