The club’s name, FedEx, will soon be in the spotlight for earnings after a holiday-shortened week of trading brought good news on the Iran war and oil prices. Also to watch over the coming week are May inflation data (with caution, as we’ll discuss later) and earnings from memory chip maker Micron, one of the most influential companies in the artificial intelligence industry. 1. FedEx Earnings: FedEx will report its fourth quarter fiscal 2026 results on Tuesday night, covering the period from March to May. Printing is complicated for several reasons. First, the reported results cover both FedEx and the newly spun out FedEx Freight, which began trading independently on June 1. As is common with spinoffs, FedEx will begin reporting adjusted financial numbers that reflect the company’s current structure as a logistics solutions and package delivery company. Complicating matters, FedEx is also doing away with its current June-to-May calendar and moving to a traditional fiscal year that ends in December. The changes, announced in January 2025, bring FedEx in line with rival UPS and other shipping industry players. Although a reasonable decision, the combination of the calendar switch and spinoff will make it difficult to compare FedEx’s guidance with Wall Street estimates. FedEx could provide guidance for both the June-September period (four months instead of the usual three in a quarter) and the seven-month transition period from June to December. Additionally, the management team, led by CEO Raj Subramaniam, is known for being conservative. Did you understand everything? The takeaway is that there’s a ton of moving parts in FedEx’s earnings Tuesday night, so it could take the market some time to digest it all. A stock’s first move may not be the right move. We will focus on reported numbers, especially profitability metrics, as they are easier to interpret than guides (at least initially). Another big focus was Subramaniam’s conference call comments about where a streamlined FedEx is headed. The latest information regarding the resumption of share buybacks is also worth paying attention to. The core of our thesis is that FedEx’s self-help efforts to optimize its delivery network and prioritize more profitable deliveries, such as specialty healthcare packages, will result in impressive earnings and free cash flow growth. Deutsche Bank analysts summed it up nicely in a June 11 note to clients: “While we acknowledge that the challenge of calendaring revenue while simultaneously juggling large freight divisions is undoubtedly difficult, we do not believe this precludes recognition that organic tailwinds remain intact/accelerate,” the analysts wrote. FedEx is expected to report earnings of $5.96 per share on revenue of $24.04 billion, according to LSEG. We are now transitioning to FedEx Freight, North America’s largest less-than-truckload (LTL) provider. LTL services consolidate loads from multiple customers onto a single trailer. These loads are too large for standard parcel shipping (for example, 150 pounds or more, or several pallets of product), but not so large that the customer needs an entire truck. The company will hear from FedEx Freight executives, led by CEO John Smith, during Thursday night’s investor day. Fourth-quarter numbers have already been released thanks to the parent company’s Tuesday night report. So we’re hoping to see fourth-quarter results on Thursday and get an update on expectations for the rest of the year. FedEx Freight said at its April investor day that it expected sales growth to be modest during the June-to-December transition period, and that adjusted operating margins would continue to be weighed down by costs related to the spinoff, including technology investments. We’re excited about what FedEx Freight can do now that it operates as an independent company, and we added our position on Wednesday. FedEx Freight’s consensus is for revenue of $2.26 billion and EPS of $1.53, according to LSEG. 2. Inflation Update: The Fed’s recommended inflation measure, the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index, will be released Thursday morning. The announcement comes after Kevin Warsh sounded more hawkish on monetary policy than some investors and Fed watchers had expected during his first news conference as Fed chairman last week. The PCE price index typically receives less attention than the consumer price index. Although they are similar, the Fed uses the PCE index for its 2% inflation target because, according to its website, the index is “constructed in a way that takes into account how Americans spend their money at a given point in time and more quickly adapts to changing spending patterns.” This week’s PCE data is from May. In early June, the May CPI hit a three-year high of 4.2%, largely due to higher energy prices related to the Iran war. Therefore, given the optimism about the end of the Middle East conflict and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz that caused oil prices to plummet last week, May’s PCE should be taken with a grain of salt. WTI crude, the U.S. oil benchmark, settled at about $76 a barrel Thursday, down sharply from the high $90s and low $100s seen during May. At the low of Thursday’s trade, WTI reached levels not seen since March 4, just days after the start of the Iran war. If these prices hold and perhaps fall further, this should provide significant relief in terms of inflation over the coming months. And that means current predictions about the likelihood of the Fed raising rates later this year could prove wrong. Sure, PCE data may help understand price pressures in other areas of the economy (such as housing and health services), but it’s oil that has been driving the inflation bus in recent months. Now the bus is headed to a much friendlier place than just a few weeks ago. The key to maintaining this situation is progress towards a durable solution in the Middle East. Iran claimed over the weekend that it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, in part due to continued Israeli military operations in Lebanon. The United States denied these claims, as Vice President J.D. Vance was in Switzerland for peace talks. 3. Micron’s profits: The Idaho-based company is experiencing a windfall from rising prices for memory chips used in data center servers. This explains why the stock is up over 800% in the past 12 months and almost 300% in 2026 alone. Although we don’t own Micron stock, the results and commentary released Wednesday affect all of our chipmakers (Nvidia, Broadcom, Intel) and the companies that spend billions of dollars building data centers. For us, that’s Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Alphabet. When Meta raised its full-year capital spending outlook in April to an 8% increase in capital spending to $135 billion, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the increase was primarily due to higher component prices, particularly memory. Microsoft also said its calendar 2026 capital spending outlook of $190 billion includes a $25 billion impact from higher component prices. Micron is one of three companies that make the type of memory chips used in AI servers, known as high-bandwidth memory (HBM). The remaining two companies are South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung. In other words, the additional capital we are putting in to cover higher memory costs will ultimately supplement the revenues of these three companies. Demand for HBM far outstrips available supply, even as manufacturers move away from the simple types used in consumer electronics and allocate more capacity to this AI memory (squeezing smartphone and PC makers like Apple in the process). Our focus with Micron will be on commentary on the company’s pricing, updates on its schedule for new manufacturing capacity, and whether it has signed additional multi-year supply agreements with customers. Micron announced in March that it had signed its first five-year supply agreement, although details were unclear. These long-term contracts are becoming more common in the memory and storage industry, which has historically been prone to boom-and-bust cycles. Chipmakers are trying to add visibility and predictability to their businesses, while customers are doing everything they can to ensure adequate supply, even if they have to pay to secure it. Analysts expect Micron to report earnings of $20.47 per share and revenue of $35.42 billion. Upcoming Weeks Monday, June 22 No earnings reports of note Tuesday, June 23 S&P Global PMI Manufacturing and Services (Preliminary) 9:45 a.m. ET Before the bell: Carnival Corporation, Sunbelt Rentals (SUNB) After the bell: FedEx (FDX) , Worthington Industries (WOR), KB Home (KBH) Wednesday, June 24 10 a.m. ET New Home Sales Before the Bell: Paychex (PAYX) After the Bell: Micron (MU), Trip.com (TCOM), MillerKnoll (MLKN), Worthington Steel (WS) Thursday, June 25, 8:30 a.m. ET PCE Price Index Before the Bell: Commercial Metals Co (CMC), Acuity Brands (AYI), McCormick & Co (MKC), TD Synnex (SNX), Darden Restaurants (DRI), Winnebago (WGO) After the Bell: FedEx Freight (FDXF) Friday, June 26 Full Inventory 8:30 a.m. ET University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment (Last) 10:00 a.m. ET No notable earnings reports (See here for a complete list of Jim Cramer Charitable Trust stocks.) 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