2026 Halftime Report: First Half of the Year Update

 Gas close to $10 a gallon will do that thing where it resets your sense of “normal” in about five seconds. After Ed got back from Lisbon, where gas was almost $10 a gallon, we wanted to zoom out and give a clear 2026 market update at the halfway point, because the mood out there feels anxious even while the major indexes are still trending up. 

We walk through the first half performance of the S&P 500, Nasdaq, Dow, and Russell 2000 and talk about what those returns can mean if you’re investing through a 401(k), IRA, or simple index fund strategy. Then we shift to the jobs market, where the headline unemployment rate doesn’t tell the whole story. Hiring has cooled in a lot of white collar entry-level paths, and that’s creating one of the toughest job markets for college grads we’ve seen in years. We also touch the growing question behind so many career conversations right now: how AI and automation might reshape job types, not just replace roles.

From there, we dig into inflation, CPI versus core CPI, and why “sticky inflation” keeps the Federal Reserve cautious on interest rate cuts. We lay out the real tradeoff the Fed is managing: cut too fast and risk re-igniting inflation, or hold rates higher and keep borrowing costs painful. Finally, we add perspective on geopolitical risk and oil disruption, using history to show how markets have often recovered even when energy headlines look scary, while still acknowledging how gas prices change everyday behavior.

If you like practical market context, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show.

Sources:
https://visit.lfg.com/FMM-CHART-BRC003 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Disclosure: Information contained in this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only, and should not be considered as financial advice. Financial Planning and Advisory Services are offered through Prosperity Capital Advisors (“PCA”), an SEC registered investment adviser.  Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Keystone Financial Group and PCA are separate, non- affiliated entities. PCA does not provide tax or legal advice. 

Transcript

Quick Disclaimer And Welcome

Announcer 0:00

The financial huddle does not provide tax, legal, financial, or other professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with their own advisors in these areas. Alright, everybody, huddle up. Play calls in. This is the Financial Huddle. Ready.

Lisbon Travel Lessons And Price Shock

Ed Beemiller 0:14

Welcome back, huddlers and Huddler Nation. To the next episode of the Financial Huddle Podcast. As usual, I am joined by my partners in crime, Mr. Ryan Fleming.

Ryan Fleming 0:27

Well, hello, everybody. And Mr. Brian Manier.

Brian Minier 0:30

Howdy, howdy. It's it's a great day. It is. And uh you just got back from a trip.

Ed Beemiller 0:36

I did. I did. Uh I I went uh international for the first time in uh since my college years. We uh had the pleasure of uh visiting Lisbon, Portugal, and wow uh a little for a little less than a week, but uh it it made me feel kind of very small given the history uh that exists over there comparing to you know thousands of years compared to a couple hundred years. We have a little more history than we do here. But yeah, I mean one of the things that was just interesting, and it will kind of relay into what we're gonna talk more about today was um trip started off uh great, you know, uh took a took a short flight to DC and then DC straight over to Lisbon, seven hours, not so bad. Well, then we get there, that that's when the bad happened. Um I've I've never seen uh in in my years of of traveling, we spent about two and a half hours getting through customs. Oh, and something I've never seen before. Brutal they actually it it was a case study in queuing theory because they put you into these long, long lines and they go back and forth and back and forth, and then you think you're up there ready. Well, no, then you go through this, they have a it's relatively new in Europe, and it's only for Americans, where you will actually go to a kiosk first, you put your passport down, and then up on the screen, all the country flags throughout the world, and you have to click on your flag. Well, guess what? Our flag wasn't on there.

Brian Minier 2:11

Oh, you know, so is this a sign of the times? What?

Ed Beemiller 2:16

So, and they're unmanned, and there's just one person basically telling you where to go. But what you were supposed to do is click on the British flag, which basically is for the English language, and then you had to put four fingers on the screen, but as you go through that, then a green light's supposed to pop in. Well, the green light actually turned red because your passport was US, the flag you picked was British responsibility. My brain is spinning. I can't wait for the bigger thing. And then they put us so they basically said failed, go through manual customs. Then there's a whole nother line. So it took two and a half hours to get through, and it was basically the same on the way back. But the the other thing that was very interesting is Lisbon, obviously, very, very old city. All the streets are basically uh cobblestone, very narrow. Beautiful. So they had these things called tuk-tucks, which um basically think of it like a large golf cart with a single-wheel like motorcycle up front, big place in the back, and they're all electric. And you wonder why they're all electric. And a lot of the cars are very small, a lot of them are electric, also. Well, you know, we go past gas stations over there, and it was like, you know, $8.50 a gallon? Actually, it's not a gallon. Well, it's a liter, but then I'm trying to do the conversion. I'm trying to do the conversion rate. It was close to $9.50, $10 a gallon. So we complain over here of what we're paying, and they're paying almost, you know, around double what we're paying here.

Ryan Fleming 3:53

I wonder why we've never gone to the metric system here in the States.

Brian Minier 3:56

I don't know. I feel like we're the only one.

Ed Beemiller 3:58

We are the only one. Let me tell you, we even talk temperatures, and you know, I you know, just give me just give me the good old traditional Fahrenheit, Celsius. I don't need I want inches, I don't need millimeters, that kind of stuff. But so American right there. I am, I mean, yeah. I I am I am but a great experience, good trip. Great experience, good trip. Great experience, great trip, which kind of leads me into gas excessive, though, is what you're saying.

Brian Minier 4:24

What was that? Gas was excessive.

Ed Beemiller 4:26

Gas was extremely uh pricey. Yeah. Um, but Uber fares and such were cheap relative to what they are in the U.S. So who knows?

First Half Market Scoreboard

Ed Beemiller 4:37

But that kind of leads into our topic uh of this podcast, which is really just taking a step back and giving an overall market update on, you know, we're really almost through here, the first half of the year, and just kind of looking at, you know, the the markets, geopolitical events, how that's impacting different things like, you know, jobs, inflation. A lot of the stuff we kind of talk about, or a lot of people will bring up to us and ask us, what do you think interest rates are gonna do, or what do you think this is gonna do? Well, halftime report. Yeah, a little halftime. A little halftime of 2026. That's

Brian Minier 5:12

right. You got your crystal ball out for the second half of the year?

Ed Beemiller 5:16

No, I I got my black ball and I shook it. I shook it, the magic ball, and it came up.

Brian Minier 5:21

What did it say the market's gonna do?

Ed Beemiller 5:22

Well, it gave me thumbs up the first time and then the and then the the second time, you know, thumbs down. So I'm not quite sure.

Brian Minier 5:28

Not quite sure.

Ryan Fleming 5:29

Huddlers hang in there. We don't know what's gonna happen with your magic ball, but what we can do is we could talk a little bit about where we've been, how about that?

Brian Minier 5:37

So if you if you remember the the first part of the year, a little volatile, uh those first couple months, we were looking at the market and asking, hey, is this gonna be the the correction or the change that we've been waiting for for a while now?

Ed Beemiller 5:51

And are we going into recession or what's happening here? Kind of happen, but but not really. Yeah.

Brian Minier 5:57

And then you look at first half of the year and and we're green up and to the right. Yep. Is the green is good. So when you look at the numbers for the first half of the year, and you start with the SP 500, so as of today's date, so depending upon when you listen to this, but uh, as of today's date, year to date, we're a little over eight percent with the S P 500. And if you go back a year, we're over 26%. So from a year to year basis. From a year-to-year basis. So when when you think about that from an SP 500, if you have an SP index fund, that that's pretty pretty good growth. You would be happy with that in your portfolio. NASDAQ year to date, over 13%. You look back a year, it's over 38%. Look at the Dow Jones 3.63 year to date, look back a year, it's 19%. And then if you look at the Russell 2000, that is the small cap stocks uh that some people like to implement in their portfolios. That one year to date is almost 13%. And if you go back a year, over 35%. Uh so big money. Yeah, but if you go back three years on that one, it's 18. So on the Russell, on the Russell, on those small cap stocks. So those are gonna have a little more volatility than our larger cap stock. So when you look at it for the first half of the year and and you were to invest just in a let's say a growth portfolio, you're gonna have uh a positive trend in your overall in your overall portfolio in your performance.

Ryan Fleming 7:30

Hopefully, hopefully that continues.

Ed Beemiller 7:33

I mean, the the the the tariffs and a lot of the other things going on where we saw those you know interim fluctuations, but after that it just keeps still trending upwards.

Brian Minier 7:44

And we'll talk about this even with the geopolitical issues that we're having and the the conflict going over in Iran. There was a little bit of a a downward tick in the market, but even with that, we're still positive. Yeah, yeah,

Why Hiring Feels Frozen

Ed Beemiller 7:57

yeah. Well, what one of the main topics that that the market reacts to and and and people focus on is the jobs market, right? Because we're we're always talking about you know how healthy is our economy, and that's often related to one of one of the factors is jobs and and how we're doing there, you know, which leads to you know unemployment rates, everything else. But both of you just had something happen this year. You both had two of well, one each, but your son and your son attended the same college, Baldwin Wallace, a little shout-out. And they graduated, right? Jackets. So jackets in a perfect world. What do what do we uh what do we hope for our children after they graduate?

Brian Minier 8:44

Oh, let's let's pray that what they get some jobs.

Ed Beemiller 8:47

If they get a job, right?

Ryan Fleming 8:48

Yeah, man. So those student loans are kicking in six months after.

Ed Beemiller 8:51

There you there you go, whether you like it or not, right? Well, you could get it deferred if you can't really find gainful employment.

Brian Minier 8:57

I told the boy you are off the payroll come May. Come May. So be ready.

Ryan Fleming 9:02

Tough job market out there.

Ed Beemiller 9:03

Well, it is, and and one of the things that if we look at overall, hiring has slowed dramatically, especially for white collar in entry-level jobs in tech, media, and corporate roles. That is what a lot of recent college grads basically migrate towards, and that's where historically they've they've found work you know, coming out. And so what it's really created is one of the toughest job markets for college grads that we've seen in quite a number of years. Um and you know that that's that's tough because as you said, most most of these kids are coming out with with student loan debt. They got to start repaying that, they have to have some type of gainful employment.

Ryan Fleming 9:58

I've got a client who uh attended a really great university, got a great degree like in analytics, data analytics, um, and even deeper, got a master's degree from the same institution. And you would think with what this kid went, he'd get a job immediately. It's been over a year and a half, and I just found out last Monday he finally landed a job that was his first day. Um, and we're like 18 months post-graduation, and you know, his parents were stressed. That the the the kid was obviously super stressed, and uh, you know, these these young these young adults gotta rethink the way they're going about starting their lives.

Ed Beemiller 10:36

Yeah, so if we look at the numbers, because that's what we look at, right? When when the market is looking at things or looking at the numbers, unemployment has been hovering for 2026 around 4.3, 4.4%, which is historically speaking, a relatively, you know, stable, healthy economy. But kind of the the underlying feeling, you know, when you when you've talked to workers and you know, there was you know a recent uh article and study published that talked about workers say the market feels much weaker than the numbers would indicate. And I think some of that gets into like the last point I made is is where are you know the reductions in employment coming from? And it's you know, depending on where you are or what you want to do in the job market. Yeah, that could be tough.

Brian Minier 11:32

Yeah, it's like the market and the job reports do not align entirely. And and the one of the reasons for that is the larger companies are really carrying the weight of the broader markets. Yeah. Yeah. And that that's what I think. That's a good point. Yeah.

Ed Beemiller 11:46

Yeah, and and uh another term that's being used is the market is being defined by a low hire, low fire economy. And what that basically means, companies aren't laying off workers like at a recession level where we're seeing, you know, significant percentages of the workforce. Now you may have some anomalies here or there. Um but they also aren't aggressively hiring.

Brian Minier 12:12

That's right. So you guys know I I get the the privilege of once a semester I go and teach at Ohio State, there's a professor, I I think he just doesn't want to teach, so he's like, come in and day off. Right, right. So it's fun. But the the last time I went in there and taught in April, I I was teaching finance to uh seniors, and I asked him, is the market is the job market as difficult as I'm hearing? And they're all like, Yeah. So if if you're listening and you're a uh newly college grad or you are uh later on in your college tenure, uh you're not alone. Right, it's uh it's a whole job market. Yeah, hang in there.

Ed Beemiller 12:49

And and one other kind of my last point that I'll make here is the impact of AI. And a lot of people are saying that AI will be replacing jobs. Now, a lot of the proponents of AI say it will actually lead to additional job creation. I I think we're kind of too early to tell which way it it's going, but a lot of people feel that you know some jobs are being replaced, you know, technology and and things like this. So there's still a lot to come on.

Ryan Fleming 13:24

We need to do an episode on AI. It's uh it's a huge topic. Oh, yeah. So student uh stay tuned, huddlers. We might we might hit upon that at some point.

Brian Minier 13:31

But that is the argument that you know people are like, oh, it's gonna take it away, but then you have to have somebody to oversee what AI is. It's gonna be a shift, I think, in in the jobs. It's not gonna be a one-for-one.

Ed Beemiller 13:43

Yeah, it's gonna be a shift in job types and just I would agree with that. You know, where where the jobs are coming from from that standpoint.

Sticky Inflation And Rate Cut Reality

Ed Beemiller 13:51

So another major factor, you know, that is always spoken about, Ryan, we'll we'll get into a little bit here, which is basically interest rates and

Ryan Fleming 14:01

yeah, I just wanted to give a little halftime report, Huddlers, on this idea of inflation, uh Fed rates, cuts, things like that. So I wrote down a few things that uh are helpful to you. Um you know, so from 2022, uh, we may have felt that inflation has kind of cooled significantly since just a couple years ago. But we get this tension that prices are still high, you know, and consumers uh you know across the board throughout the country that continue to kind of feel pressure um on things like uh groceries, you know, milk, eggs. I mean, remember eggs not that long ago were like so high, but groceries are incredibly expensive. Um, insurance, um, cost for insurance is just through the roof. Housing is that's another thing for these young people. I mean, job markets tough, but oh my goodness, trying to get a house or uh renting and how it's just a lot of people.

Brian Minier 14:58

I was in conversation the other day with someone, and they're like, how are these young people going to do it? Starter homes. It's uns. Just to get into a starter house is so insane.

Ryan Fleming 15:07

Yeah. That's why so many are if if they're fortunate, they they they probably hate the idea of living with their parents, but it's probably one of the fiscally most amazing things they could do. They have to almost you know. I mean, so uh groceries, insurance, housing, dining out, eating out is incredible. So, you know, we still kind of feel this pressure. Um, current inflation data, and again, this is from the consumer price index, uh, Department of Labor. Um, we've got a few sources here for some of these stats, but as we said here today, the the CPI index is is right around 3.8 percent. Uh the core CPI, uh, which is null and void of a couple other sectors, is right around just a little bit under 3%, right around 2.8% or so. And so, you know, that's kind of the the push and pull when it comes to that. When it comes to like the the Federal Reserve, I mean, their goal and what they're trying to do is that they're they're trying their best to bring inflation back down towards right around that 2% mark. And um they're they're trying to do that, you know, to avoid a recession. And you know, we we call we call that like they got to do something, but they're trying to have us have a soft landing, you know, and that's kind of what's going on from a from a high-level standpoint. I wrote down this too, the the the Fed remains cautious about cutting rates too quickly because inflation could just re-ignite. It could just re-accelerate. If they just slap uh slash uh slash them real quick, that that could be a negative thing. But if they remain, if rates remain elevated for too too long, um you know, then that that's not good as well, too. You know, so mortgage rates are higher, higher credit card interest rate, more expensive borrowing overall, though those kind of things are uh a push and pull.

Ed Beemiller 16:55

Y eah, you you can refer to that as the ongoing battle between our current president and the Federal Reserve System.

Brian Minier 17:03

Yeah, I was gonna say if you remember not too long ago, he was he was bickering with the Fed chair, lower interest rates because he wanted the market to spike up, it makes them look good. Correct. But the problem with that is when you have very low interest rates and you have a fantastic market, what happens with inflation? It goes through the roof.

Ed Beemiller 17:22

Hyperinflation is the economic term. There you go, very oppressive.

Ryan Fleming 17:26

Some people are calling uh calling this sticky inflation right now, right? Because we kind of expected a lot of different rate cuts throughout the year, and they're kind of holding, they're holding the pattern. So a lot of people out there have called that sticky inflation has delayed those expectations for those rapid rate cuts or various rate cuts. Um, you know, I I I put down the way that I summed it up, I just want to kind of get a couple uh quick sound bites that kind of sums up inflation and rate hikes. Here's a couple things to think about. Inflation for the first half of the year has gone from emergency level, kind of bad, to frustratingly persistent. Another soundbite that might make sense is that the Fed's biggest fear is cutting rates too early and re-igniting that inflation. Uh high interest rates are painful, but that is the type of medicine that we need. That pain is part of the correction and the medicine that we need as uh as our country. And people experience inflation emotionally at the grocery store, not academically in the economic reports. And so as you think about things like the sources from Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CPI data, um, some of these uh uh sources here from the Federal Open Market Committee and the Federal Reserve Economic Data, when it comes to these numbers and inflation and rates, it'll be interesting to see what's gonna happen the second half of the year. My humble opinion, this is just Ryan Fleming's opinion, is I I think we might just get a little bit more of the same. I think there might be a holding pattern here the the next six months heading into 2007, but who knows?

Brian Minier 19:06

Yeah, they kept teasing they're gonna lower again, they're gonna lower again, and then like you said, they just hold. It's sticky, it's right, it's a sticky, yeah. So I I would tend to agree with that. I think that's probably what's gonna happen. But again, our crystal ball's not out. Maybe the magic eight ball can tell us.

Ed Beemiller 19:21

Oh, it can magic eight ball always has an answer. Yeah, it always has an answer. Always has an answer. Yeah.

Oil Disruptions And Market Comebacks

Ryan Fleming 19:26

I hope gas doesn't go to ten dollars like in Lisbon.

Brian Minier 19:28

Well, and you know, and speaking of that, that does impact everybody. So you may be listening, you're like, I have no idea what my 401k or my IRA is doing because I just don't look at it. But you pay attention every time you go and and pump gas. And over those last few months, like, man, it is it has gone up quite a bit. And so if you've listened to us for any amount of time, you know we like to give historical data. We like to give uh a quasi. I'm not gonna hit it because it's a quasi-stat, it's not really stat time. Maybe we'll just push it. Yeah, we can still do it. Throw in one. Yeah. So what I what I thought was was interesting to share was when how markets have recovered, and you could say quickly from oil disruption. So if you go all the way back to the first Gulf War in 1990, uh, that oil disruption within the first two weeks, the market dropped over six percent. And in two months, it dropped over ten percent. However, one year from there, the market went up twelve point eight, in two years it went up over twenty-seven percent. Okay, so now you're like, okay, that's great. That was in 1990. So the second Gulf War in 2003, when you had that oil disruption, the market didn't even drop after that. It went up 0.6%, and then a year after it was up almost 30%, even with that going on. So then fast forward, go to the uh Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. You would think that would have been a big disruptor. Well, not really. Within two weeks, the market actually increased 0.9% and went up 1.3 in two months, and then two years after that, up over 24%. And so where are we at today with with US, Israel, and the Iran conflict? Well, within two weeks of that happening in February, the market dropped 2.5%, but yet two months later, we're up five percent. So from a market standpoint, you would think this is gonna have a negative effect, and it actually doesn't. History tells us, and even where we're at right now, it it actually has not had that much of a negative effect. In fact, we're positive. Now, what will that mean for gas prices in the future? We're still seeing those prices up, but I would tend to think over time those are gonna come back down like they have historically. Hopefully.

Gas Prices Change Real Life Choices

Ed Beemiller 21:55

And we just can't we have to remember we can't live in isolation, right? We're we're we're a world economy. Things that happen across the seas, different places, impact everything. And you know, you talked about inflation and the cost of goods and services and everything else. Remember, gas controls a lot of that because guess what? How are your groceries delivered to the grocer? Yeah, it it impacts everything via truck, yeah, via air, via the ground. So so much of this is just intertwined and tied together. And but when you get to the point where people are changing behaviors, when gas prices get up to, hey, it's costing me eighty to a hundred dollars to fill my tank, then people start changing. All right, well, maybe we're not gonna do that, you know, trip to some of those leisurely entertainment, you know, long drive, right? You know, so so we hey, we appreciate Huddlers, we appreciate you taking this time. As we did here, we're really just trying to provide kind of a snapshot of the first you know, half of this year. And this is something we'll we'll do, you know, twice a year, unless you know something comes up that really needs attention, where we may just pop in and give you a give you an update as is. But you know, as always, appreciate you listening. Whether you're doing it via audio, video, please encourage friends, family, like, follow, share.

Brian Minier 23:19

And tell us what you want to hear about. If there's something specific that you feel would be helpful, let us know. We'd be happy to cover that for you.

Ryan Fleming 23:25

Yeah, thanks for hanging in and listening with us.

Ed Beemiller 23:27

We appreciate your time. Until next time. See you guys. Take care.