Nvidia results, more retail earnings: What to know this week
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An update from the AI darling of the 2023 stock market rally will highlight a holiday-shortened week for investors.
Chip giant Nvidia's (NVDA) quarterly report is slated for Tuesday, while Lowe's (LOW), John Deere (DE), Best Buy (BBY), and Zoom (ZM) are also expected to release results.
The drama surrounding Sam Altman's ouster — and potential return — at ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which kicked off late Friday, will also be in focus given the role the AI boom has played in catalyzing this year's market rally and Microsoft's sizable investment in the AI startup.
The economic calendar is expected to be mostly quiet with the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey and manufacturing data highlighting the schedule. The stock market will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.
Stocks gained ground across the board last week, with a softer-than-expected inflation reading for the month of October sending the market into rally mode.
Since the start of November, all three major indexes are higher with the Nasdaq (^IXIC) up about 10% while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) is up almost 8%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) has risen almost 6%.
The economic narrative began to tilt last week, as October's surprise inflation print revealed consumer prices increased at a slower pace than expected. Investors took this and other data suggesting the economy is moderating as a signal the Federal Reserve is likely done raising interest rates and could be successful in engineering a "soft landing" in which inflation retreats to the central bank's 2% target without a recession.
Still, economists warn investors should not quite celebrate this outcome yet. Oxford Economics' lead US economist Michael Pearce doesn't see the Fed's fight against inflation as complete, even if he agrees interest rates are unlikely to rise further.
"While there is probably more good news on shelter and core goods prices coming down the pike over the next few months, that is not enough to convince the Fed that inflation is on a sustained path back to 2%," Pearce wrote in a research note on Friday. "That will require more softening in labor markets, which is likely to be a protracted affair, keeping the Fed on hold until well into the second half of next year."
This week's big corporate event will be earnings out of Nvidia, which should have repercussions across the market.
The company's blowout earnings sent the market roaring higher at the end of May as this year's AI hype cycle kicked into high gear. This narrative appeared to cool towards the end of the summer, with many of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks falling along with the broader market through early fall.