Iran Crisis, Oil Shock, Fed Split & Q2 Earnings: What Investors Need to Know

This podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, not a recommendation to buy or sell any specific security. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Consult your own licensed financial professional before making any investment decision. Mike Milligan is a Certified Financial Planning Professional and the founder of One Oak Financial. Well, good morning. Welcome to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. I'm Mike Milligan, Certified Financial Planning Professional. It's Thursday, July 9th, 2026. Reese's Pieces, Justin Verlander, and the Emmy nominations were the 3 trending stories on Google yesterday. The World Cup had a day off. The Federal Reserve released the minutes and Chairman Warsh called it a family fight. And by the end of the day, Iran was back on the front page. Strikes are back, the ceasefire's off, and oil is up 5%. Educate, coach, plan. That's what I do. And I never miss a moment. Let's go.

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3 stories climbing yesterday's Google Trends, and here's why each matters. Reese's Pieces. Hershey announced the first new Reese's Pieces product in 10 years. Reese's Pieces with a chocolate cookie center. This launches nationwide July 17th and pouches online July 25th. It's been 10 years between innovation on a legacy candy brand. That is a business school case study. Every legacy business, including yours, including mine, has to keep innovating or it dies, even if it takes 10 years between shots.

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Justin Verlander. Yesterday, the 43-year-old Detroit Tigers pitcher announced 2026 will be his final major league season. As an ODU adjunct lecturer. Justin Verlander is a legend there. He played his college baseball before moving on to Detroit, Houston, and other major league cities. He has 3 Cy Young Awards, 2 World Series rings, an MVP, 21 years in the big leagues. The commissioner selected him as a legends pick for this year's All-Star Game, his 10th appearance. Verlander sat down and said, quote, this will be the last time. That is what a great career exit looks like. Planned, graceful, on his own terms. That, my friends, is retirement planning applied to sports. And then there's the Emmy nominations for 2026. The 78th Primetime Emmy nominations were unveiled yesterday in North Hollywood. It's going to be hosted by Lisa Colon-Zayas of The Bear and Jeff Hiller of Somebody Somewhere. The September 14th ceremony will be on NBC and Peacock. If you are a Bridgerton fan, and I am, the season 4 buzz is real. Award season is officially open, folks. 3 headlines, a candy relaunch, a legend's exit, and TV's biggest night. All 3 tell you something about how businesses, career, and industries plan for their next act.

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The June 17th or 16th and 17th Federal Open Market Committee minutes dropped yesterday at 2:00 PM. This was Chairman Kevin Warsh's first meeting as sitting chair. He described the debate in his post-meeting news conference as, quote, a family fight. Here's what the minutes showed. The committee voted unanimously to hold the Fed funds rate in the 3.5% to 3.75% percentage range. where it is set all of 2026. The dot plot, the individual member projections, and Warsh did not participate, by the way, narrowly tilted toward one rate hike this year, then a cut in each of the following 2 years. That is a split committee, folks. Half see rates staying here or drifting slightly lower by year-end. Half see rates going higher. The minutes said the risk of inflation remained tilted to the upside with tariffs, energy prices, and supply disruptions related to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz still in play. Warsh separately said he believes AI will ultimately be disinflationary due to productivity gains. The post-meeting statement itself was cut to 1/3 of its usual size. Warsh said Fed officials should communicate less about future intentions And boy, is he doing it. This is educational only. The market reaction was muted because half the story arrived from the Middle East before— minutes before that tape hit.

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And that news was yesterday morning, Iran launched attacks on 3 commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Overnight into Wednesday, the US military carried out precision strikes on more than 80 targets in Iran, air defense systems, command and control networks, and anti-ship missile capabilities. Iran's Revolutionary Guards then said they had targeted US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait. Warning sirens sounded in both countries. At the NATO summit, President Trump told reporters the ceasefire Memorandum of Understanding with Iran was, quote, over. He added that continuing talks with Tehran was quite a waste of time. Later in the afternoon, he clarified that the fighting did not mean a return to full-scale war. Markets moved. The Dow fell 576 points, down 1.1% to close at 52,348. The S&P dropped 21 or down 0.3%. 3 to 7,482. The NASDAQ Composite rose 52 points, up 0.2% to 25,870, holding on because AI-adjacent names caught a late-day bid rally. And the Russell 2000 fell 0.9%. Brent crude, though, jumped over 5% to roughly $78.50 a barrel. West Texas jumped over 6% to $74.71. The Treasury Department revoked the authorization that has allowed Iran to export oil to global markets. 2-year Treasury yields ticked up and the volatility index climbed. Educational context, folks, but the Strait of Hormuz carries about 1/5 of the world's oil and liquid natural gas trade. Every time that waterway comes back into the headlines, the inflation math gets harder for the Federal Reserve to ignore. This is why your plan needs to be built on for what you cannot forecast, because the Fed cannot forecast it either.

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The World Cup returns today in Foxborough, Massachusetts. France versus Morocco with the first true heavyweight quarterfinal. Mbappé versus Hakimi. This is a chess match between 2 of the most talented sides in the whole tournament. On the earnings side, in the stock market, PepsiCo reports today. I personally am a Coke guy, but this is the unofficial start of the Q2 earnings season. Watch 2 things, the pricing power and volume trends in North America beverage and snacks. Consumer stress that I talked about yesterday about FHA delinquencies, subprime auto, they could start showing up in the earnings for consumer-facing companies over the next 4 weeks. Delta Airlines is going to report later in the week, and then the big banks on Tuesday, JP Morgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, Goldman, Morgan Stanley. We do not chase returns. We build a plan. A family fight at the Fed, a shooting war back on in the Persian Gulf, and Q2 earnings starting up. That is 3 moving pieces at once. Your plan is what turns these 3 moving pieces into a decision.

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Justin Verlander's retired on his own terms. That is the goal. That is exactly what a one-of-a-kind financial plan is built to do. You get to write the ending. You get to walk off the field when you are ready. You get to hear the crowd stand up one more time. Reese's Pieces went 10 years between innovations. Your financial plan should not. It should be reviewed every year, turned over and reviewed so that it can be tuned up, and it should be rewritten when your life changes. Estoy aprendiendo. I am learning. That's the plan, and that never—the plan that never gets updated—is the plan that fails when the world changes on you. Never miss a moment, folks. This has been the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily. I'm Mike Milligan, Certified Financial Planning Professional, founder of One Oak Financial. The show is educational only, not investment advice, not a recommendation to buy or sell any specific security. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please consult your own licensed professional before making any financial decision. I am an insurance advisor, investment advisory representative with Advisory Alpha LLC. Ideas by Mike, doing business as One Oak Financial, and Mike Milligan LLC, doing business as One Oak Collective, are unaffiliated entities of Advisory Alpha LLC. Enjoy your Thursday.

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