Turbulent Month Leaves Stock Funds Up 10.6% So Far in 2026 -- Journal Report

By William Power

July was a good lesson for long-term fund investors: Don't sweat the day-to-day moves.

Tech stocks were hammered one day, then celebrated the next, on the latest hints about the impact of artificial intelligence. International Business Machines stock dropped 25% on July 14, its worst day in the company's century-old history; Apple shares fell a bracing 7.4% on July 31, the same day that Amazon.com rocketed 15%.

But in the end, it wasn't a big setback for fund investors overall. After a strong second quarter led by tech stocks, the average U.S.-stock mutual fund or exchange-traded fund posted a negative total return of 2.1% for July. That leaves the category with a year-to-date gain of 10.6%, according to statistics from LSEG. (See Mutual-Fund Yardsticks table.)

"As we head into the fall, within a midterm election year, there is typically volatility and so we would be cautious for the next couple of months," said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management. "The stock market returns in the third quarter of midterm election years are much less than the average third-quarter returns" in the other three non-midterm years, he said.

International-stock funds were up 0.6% on average for the month, to increase their year-to-date gain to 11.1%.

Bond funds fell. Funds focused on investment-grade debt (the most common type of fixed-income fund) posted a negative total return of 1.3%, to leave them with a 0.6% decline so far in 2026.

FINANCIAL FLASHBACK

A look back at Wall Street Journal news from this month in history

-- 55 YEARS AGO: End of the Gold Standard

For years after the end of World War II, the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates pegged the U.S. dollar to gold at a rate of $35 an ounce. Then came the "Nixon shock."

Beset by inflation and a weak job market, President Richard Nixon on Aug. 15, 1971, held a "suddenly scheduled television broadcast" to the nation in which he ordered a series of economic moves to promote price stability, boost job growth and stoke American competitiveness. Perhaps his most stunning move: ending the gold standard for international exchange.

"Formally, the U.S. notified the 118-country International Monetary Fund that it 'no longer freely buys and sells gold for the settlement of international transactions,' " the Journal wrote. This meant that the U.S. had decided to "completely close the gold window" and to "let the dollar float" according to supply and demand.

"The range of actions I have taken and proposed tonight on the job front, on the inflation front, on the monetary front is the most comprehensive new economic policy to be undertaken in this nation in four decades," Nixon told the TV audience. He also expressed belief in Americans' ability to meet the challenge of foreign peacetime competition.

President Nixon admitted, in effect, that he was gutting the international monetary system by cutting loose the dollar from the gold-price peg, the Journal wrote. Under that system, set up at Bretton Woods, N.H., at the end of the war, the U.S. renewed its promise to peg the dollar to the fixed gold price and other countries agreed to peg their currencies to the dollar. But Canada, Germany and the Netherlands had already been defying the rules by letting their currencies float.

Still, despite the drastic actions, the Nixon administration declined to describe the end of the gold peg as a "devaluation of the dollar." Officials did acknowledge that the move would "shake things up" as governments wishing to exchange excess dollars for gold would no longer be paid at the $35-an-ounce price.

"I wouldn't use the word devaluation simply because I don't know what is going to happen," said Treasury Secretary John B. Connally, adding that Nixon's move "permits us to negotiate new rates of exchange." In 1973, the U.S. devalued the dollar, and less than two years later, a new gold-ownership law allowed Americans to hold gold other than jewelry for the first time since 1933 -- and trade it on futures exchanges.

-- 60 YEARS AGO: Bear-Market Honey: A Few Investors Make Profits Even as Most Stock Prices Plunge

-- 100 YEARS AGO: Another Week of Dulness in Bonds

--By Simon Constable

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 09, 2026 09:00 ET (13:00 GMT)