Despite another rate hike from the Fed and mixed earnings results, markets still pushed higher, with the Dow, S&P, and Russell all being up between 0.25% and 1%, week over week, and the Nasdaq is up nearly 2.25%! However, we’re not out of the woods yet; we still have some very large companies reporting earnings this week, as well as some very influential economic data releases!
This past week, we found good news in almost every single economic data release. Q2 GDP was much higher than anticipated, coming in at 2.4% versus an expected 2.0%. PCE inflation data also came in at or below expectations across the board. This is great, as PCE is the Fed’s favorite inflation metric.
Unfortunately, though, we did see another quarter-point rate hike from the Fed. However, this didn’t seem to be a surprise to markets, as they still roared higher throughout the week. This is mainly due to the fact that markets had this rate hike priced in, as well as the fact that a quarter-point rate hike is a much smaller percentage change now than it was just one year ago!
Fortunately for us, things have cooled down in terms of economic data releases this week. We won’t have any major releases. However, there will be some important data on employment coming out. On Tuesday, we’ll get to see the job openings report, followed by the ADP employment report on Wednesday. Lastly, we’ll get nonfarm payroll, unemployment, and hourly wage data on Friday. These will all be important to pay attention to, as they are key metrics that the Fed is using to inform their decisions on interest rate policy!
Q2 Earnings season continues this week as some of the most influential companies in the world report their results, such as:
07/31 – Arista Networks (ANET), Republic Services (RSG), ON Semiconductor Corporation (ON), Welltower Inc. (WELL)
08/01 – Merck & Company, Inc. (MRK), Pfizer, Inc. (PFE), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT), BP p.l.c. (BP), Starbucks Corporation (SBUX), Mitsubishi Financial Group (MUFG), Uber Technologies (UBER), Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (VRTX)
08/02 – Novo Nordisk (NVO), Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), CVS Health Corp. (CVS), Shopify Inc. (SHOP), PayPal Holdings (PYPL), Equinix, Inc. (EQIX)
08/03 – Apple Inc. (AAPL), Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), Alibaba Group Holding (BABA), Toyota Motor Corp (TM), ConocoPhilips (COP), Amgen Inc. (AMGN), Booking Holdings Inc. (BKNG), Stryker Corporation (SYK), Gilead Sciences, Inc. (GILD), Airbnb, Inc. (ABNB)
08/04 – Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A/BRK.B), Sony Group Corporation (SONY), Enbridge Inc. (ENB)
We’ll get to hear from big tech giants AAPL and AMZN, two stocks that will more than likely move in a huge way after their earnings, given the results we saw from META, GOOG, and MSFT last week.
We’ll also get to hear from some other large-cap tech companies, like UBER, SHOP, PYPL, and ABNB. All of these companies are down drastically from their 2021 highs, so it will be interesting to see what their leadership has to say about the current business landscape and what things look like moving forward.
Lastly, some key pharmaceutical companies will be reporting earnings, such as MRK, PFE, VRTX, NVO, and CVS. Everyone will be paying attention to their forecasts, as the COVID tailwinds aren’t nearly as strong as they have been in the past.
Monitoring the market conditions this week.
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