Good morning, CFOs. PE flexes its muscles; Americans pull back after pandemic-era credit-card binge; Canada’s biggest airline faces a crisis; plus, Disney’s Marvel abandons Georgia, the ‘Hollywood of the South’.

Private equity is ready once again to flex its financial muscle, with larger firms emphasizing their size and scale against the backdrop of a widening gap between the industry’s giants and smaller fry, reports my colleague Maria Armental.

Executives of large publicly traded firms took an increasingly bullish tone in recent earnings calls, reflecting a resurgence in dealmaking and fundraising during the second quarter. Their comments contrast with a “PE stuck in the mud” phase, as one industry analyst put it, describing the effects of a period of policy and tax uncertainty that disrupted dealmaking plans earlier in the year.

Monday

Earnings: Palo Alto Networks

The National Association of Home Builders releases its Housing Market Index for August.

Tuesday

Earnings: Home Depot, Jack Henry & Associates, Keysight Technologies, Medtronic, Toll Brothers and Viking Holdings

The Census Bureau reports new residential construction data for July.

Wednesday

Earnings: Analog Devices, Estee Lauder, Lowe’s, Target and TJX Cos.

The Federal Open Market Committee releases the minutes from its late-July monetary-policy meeting.

Thursday

Earnings: Intuit, Ross Stores, Walmart, Workday and Zoom Communications

S&P Global releases both its Manufacturing and Services Purchasing Managers’ Indexes for August.

The National Association of Realtors reports existing-home sales for July.

Friday

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Americans are starting to pull back from a pandemic-era credit-card binge.

After a surge in credit-card spending that pushed Americans’ card balances above $1 trillion, growth is now moderating. Credit-card spending has been growing more slowly than debit-card spending since late last year, the first such stretch in nearly four years, according to the latest spending data from Visa and Mastercard.

🇨🇦 Meanwhile in Canada, Air Canada is facing a crisis after its flight attendants walked off the job over the weekend and rejected a government order to return to work.

Who does this impact? The union representing 10,000 flight attendants at Canada’s biggest airline said it would request that a judge block a government order Saturday that imposed binding arbitration to resolve a labor dispute between the union and carrier. The order came hours after Canadian Union of Public Employees members began their strike, which grounded flights. Air Canada transports roughly 130,000 passengers a day and operates nearly 200 flights daily to the U.S.

📰 Other headlines

• Strong Crop of Earnings Eases Investors’ Economic Concerns
• Disney’s Marvel Abandons Georgia, Taking Livelihoods With It
• The Chili’s Economy Is Here: What’s Behind the Casual-Dining Boom
• Republicans Promote the Big Beautiful Bill, With Care
• Getting to the Moon or Mars? Musk and Bezos Tackle Space Travel’s Refueling Problem
• Gamblers Now Bet on AI Models Like Racehorses
• NYC Offices Are Back. Nothing Proves It More Than JPMorgan’s $3 Billion Tower.
• Six Flags Is Having a Seriously Scary Summer

The Wall Street Journal's CFO Journal offers corporate leaders and professionals CFO analysis, advice and commentary to make informed decisions. We cover topics including corporate tax, accounting, regulation, capital markets, management and strategy.

Follow us on X @WSJCFO. The WSJ CFO Journal Team comprises reporters Kristin Broughton, Mark Maurer and Jennifer Williams, and Bureau Chief Walden Siew.

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