In Friday’s column in this space, we mentioned we are embarking on the quietest trading period until the end of the calendar year, but that was somewhat premature: aside from noteworthy economic reports on Durable Goods Orders, jobless claims and Friday’s comprehensive Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report, we’ll also see a last blast of notable names reporting quarterly earnings. Among these will be Zoom Video (ZM - Free Report) after the close today, Macy’s (M - Free Report) tomorrow morning and NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) Wednesday.
Last week was the first in August to close lower, and we’ve been in a pretty strong up-cycle since mid-July. This followed a stubborn week or two that only showed moderate gains off mid-June lows. Our past month of trading shows all four major indices up strong, from +5.67% on the Down to +8.33% on the small-cap Russell 2000. Thus, we’ll not be fretting last week’s slightly down performance.
That said, we’re picking up Monday morning where we left off Friday — lower. The Dow looks to open -300 points at this hour, the Nasdaq is -200 and the S&P 500 -50 points. We had seen five straight up-weeks for the S&P and Nasdaq; are we about to give some of this back? Likely this will rest on whether the big-box retail and semiconductor companies reporting this week fare.
For instance, cybersecurity major Palo Alto Networks (PANW - Free Report) reports fiscal Q2 results after today’s closing bell. Earnings of $2.28 per share in the Zacks consensus marks a year-over-year gain of more than +42%, while revenues for the quarter is expected +26.6% to $1.54 billion. The company has not missed an earnings estimate at least since Zacks recalibrated its earnings computations back in 2014; the Silicon Valley firm went public in the summer of 2012, and is +866% from that point, though still -5.6% year to date.
Also this week is the Jackson Hole symposium, where Fed Chair Jay Powell is expected to speak for the first time since the last monetary policy meeting last month. It is very much expected that Powell will field questions pertaining to the next Fed funds rate hike, currently anticipated to be another 75 basis points (bps) for the third consecutive quarter. But there’s still a month before the next Fed meeting; it’s likely Powell punts on these questions for now.
Infrastructure Stock Boom to Sweep America
A massive push to rebuild the crumbling U.S. infrastructure will soon be underway. It’s bipartisan, urgent, and inevitable. Trillions will be spent. Fortunes will be made.
The only question is “Will you get into the right stocks early when their growth potential is greatest?”
Zacks has released a Special Report to help you do just that, and today it’s free. Discover 5 special companies that look to gain the most from construction and repair to roads, bridges, and buildings, plus cargo hauling and energy transformation on an almost unimaginable scale.
Download FREE: How To Profit From Trillions On Spending For Infrastructure >>
In Friday’s column in this space, we mentioned we are embarking on the quietest trading period until the end of the calendar year, but that was somewhat premature: aside from noteworthy economic reports on Durable Goods Orders, jobless claims and Friday’s comprehensive Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report, we’ll also see a last blast of notable names reporting quarterly earnings. Among these will be Zoom Video (ZM - Free Report) after the close today, Macy’s (M - Free Report) tomorrow morning and NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) Wednesday.
Last week was the first in August to close lower, and we’ve been in a pretty strong up-cycle since mid-July. This followed a stubborn week or two that only showed moderate gains off mid-June lows. Our past month of trading shows all four major indices up strong, from +5.67% on the Down to +8.33% on the small-cap Russell 2000. Thus, we’ll not be fretting last week’s slightly down performance.
That said, we’re picking up Monday morning where we left off Friday — lower. The Dow looks to open -300 points at this hour, the Nasdaq is -200 and the S&P 500 -50 points. We had seen five straight up-weeks for the S&P and Nasdaq; are we about to give some of this back? Likely this will rest on whether the big-box retail and semiconductor companies reporting this week fare.
For instance, cybersecurity major Palo Alto Networks (PANW - Free Report) reports fiscal Q2 results after today’s closing bell. Earnings of $2.28 per share in the Zacks consensus marks a year-over-year gain of more than +42%, while revenues for the quarter is expected +26.6% to $1.54 billion. The company has not missed an earnings estimate at least since Zacks recalibrated its earnings computations back in 2014; the Silicon Valley firm went public in the summer of 2012, and is +866% from that point, though still -5.6% year to date.
Also this week is the Jackson Hole symposium, where Fed Chair Jay Powell is expected to speak for the first time since the last monetary policy meeting last month. It is very much expected that Powell will field questions pertaining to the next Fed funds rate hike, currently anticipated to be another 75 basis points (bps) for the third consecutive quarter. But there’s still a month before the next Fed meeting; it’s likely Powell punts on these questions for now.
Infrastructure Stock Boom to Sweep America
A massive push to rebuild the crumbling U.S. infrastructure will soon be underway. It’s bipartisan, urgent, and inevitable. Trillions will be spent. Fortunes will be made.
The only question is “Will you get into the right stocks early when their growth potential is greatest?”
Zacks has released a Special Report to help you do just that, and today it’s free. Discover 5 special companies that look to gain the most from construction and repair to roads, bridges, and buildings, plus cargo hauling and energy transformation on an almost unimaginable scale.
Download FREE: How To Profit From Trillions On Spending For Infrastructure >>
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