Economy

The U.S. goods-and-services trade deficit narrowed to $73.3 billion in June 2026, driven by a $7.3 billion drop in imports that outpaced a $2.9 billion decline in exports. Year to date, the deficit is down 33.8% compared to the same period in 2025, with exports up 11.7% and imports nearly flat at 0.4% growth. The June monthly improvement differs from the full Q2 picture, where net exports subtracted 1.01 percentage points from real GDP growth of 1.5% annualized.

The June 2026 JOLTS release shows job openings declined by 178,000 from May to 7.359 million, while hires increased to 5.348 million and the openings-to-unemployed ratio held near parity at 1.04. The BLS also revised May quits upward by 88,000 and May layoffs by 53,000, meaning the prior month's labor turnover was more active than first reported. Health care, leisure and hospitality, and professional services posted the largest sector-level declines in openings.

ADP's National Employment Report for July 2026 is scheduled for 8:15 a.m. ET on August 5, two days before the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes its broader Employment Situation on August 7. The ADP report draws on anonymized payroll data from over 26 million private-sector employees and is reweighted to correct for sample biases, but it covers only private employers and uses different methodology than the BLS survey, meaning the two figures routinely diverge. June's ADP reading showed private-sector employment grew by 98,000 jobs, with service industries accounting for nearly all of that gain; July figures were not available at the research cutoff.

The July 2026 ISM Services PMI is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. ET on August 5, with the June composite sitting at 54 percent and the Prices component elevated at 67.7 percent. The Prices Index measures input costs paid by services organizations, not consumer prices, and carries a different definition than the PCE inflation measure the Fed uses, where core nonhousing services rose 3.9 percent through May. The July manufacturing PMI already registered 55.6 percent expansion, giving a sector comparison point once the services figure is published.

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook is scheduled to deliver remarks on the economic outlook at an Anchorage luncheon on August 5, 2026, two weeks before the July 28–29 FOMC meeting minutes are published on August 19. Her most recent speech, from July 15, placed inflation at 3.7 percent against a 2 percent target and stated that inflation risks outweighed employment risks. No prepared text for the August 5 remarks was available at the time of publication, leaving her current policy stance unconfirmed.

The New York Fed's Heise-Pearce-Weber Labor Market Tightness Index, a composite of the JOLTS quits rate and vacancies per effective searcher, is due August 5, 2026, following June JOLTS data showing 7.36 million openings in line with expectations. The HPW Index differs from the standard vacancies-to-unemployment ratio by counting employed job seekers alongside the unemployed, a distinction the Fed introduced after the V/U ratio's predictive accuracy for wage growth weakened after 2015. As of publication, the August HPW reading had not yet been released, with May 2026 remaining the most recent available observation showing the index hovering near zero, indicating broadly balanced labor market conditions.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish its first estimate of Q2 2026 nonfarm-business labor productivity and unit labor costs at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on August 6, 2026. The report will show whether compensation growth outpaced productivity gains from April through June, a relationship that signals producer cost pressure relevant to the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation objective. The Q1 2026 revised figures offer useful context: productivity was revised down from +0.8% to +0.3% and unit labor costs from +2.3% to +1.8%, a precedent that the Thursday preliminary figures will themselves be subject to later adjustment.

The most recent DOL weekly claims report, released July 30, showed seasonally adjusted initial claims at 197,000 for the week ending July 25, while the four-week moving average fell to 202,750. The August 6 release covering the week ending August 1 had not yet been published as of the research cutoff, meaning current figures remain unknown. Thursday's report arrives one day before the July Employment Situation report, making it the freshest available read on layoff trends ahead of the payroll data.

The New York Fed's Global Supply Chain Pressure Index, which combines shipping cost data and manufacturing PMI signals across seven economies into a single normalized gauge, publishes its next monthly update on Thursday, August 6, 2026. The most recent official reading cited in a May 2026 New York Fed analysis stood at 1.8 standard deviations above the historical average, driven by lengthening delivery times and rising order backlogs. Research underlying the index finds that elevated readings correlate with producer-price inflation more strongly than consumer-price inflation, making the release a useful but partial input to the goods-inflation outlook.

The U.S. Census Bureau will publish final June 2026 wholesale trade figures on August 6, including the inventory level that feeds into the BEA's Q2 GDP inventory-investment calculation. An advance estimate already placed June wholesale inventories at $945.9 billion, up 0.3% from May, but the final number may differ within a ±0.2% sampling margin. Because BEA adjusts Census data for overseas holdings, nonmerchant wholesalers, and valuation, the wholesale release alone will not determine the exact GDP revision — it is one required input among several.

The Weekly Economic Index, a composite of ten real-activity indicators scaled to four-quarter GDP growth, is due Thursday from the New York Fed. The most recent available readings show the index ranging between 2.46 and 3.12 for the five weeks ended July 25, with a noted discrepancy between FRED and Dallas Fed vintages that the official release is expected to resolve. Thursday also brings initial jobless claims, preliminary Q2 productivity and unit labor cost data, the Global Supply Chain Pressure Index, and the Census Bureau's wholesale trade report.