As earnings season begins to wind down, Wall Street this week turned its focus to the main measure of retail inflation, which we expect will show further declines. The stock market, after a strong start in 2023, has been particularly sensitive again to the increase in bond yields in the concerns of the Federal Reserve may not be able to pull back the tightening to fight the rising price pressure as soon as expected. Looking forward January’s consumer price index (CPI), which calculates the average change over time in the prices that buyers pay for goods and services, is scheduled for Tuesday. We’re looking for a smaller — but not overwhelming — increase in prices to indicate the Fed’s interest rate hikes are trying to beat inflation. Economists and investors will use these numbers to gauge the likelihood of a soft landing or bankruptcy for the economy. The year-over-year CPI advance in December of 6.5% marked the smallest 12-month increase since October 2021. That was down from a 7.1% gain in November. The producer price index (PPI) for January, which measures the change in selling prices received by producers of goods and services, was released on Thursday. The PPI does not affect Fed decisions as much as the CPI. But the PPI reading can predict the direction of the consumer price reading in the future because it shows that producers will have to pay higher costs to buyers. Going to press on Wednesday, January’s retail sales numbers are out. A month-over-month gain of 1.5% is expected after the 1.1% decline in December. In addition to economic data, the market will run through another quarterly earnings report from Corporate America. The results so far have been better than expected. Of the more than two-thirds of S&P 500 companies that have reported, 69% had a positive earnings surprise and 63% had a positive earnings surprise. In the Club, Devon Energy’s (DVN) quarterly results were released after the closing bell on Tuesday but the post-earnings conference call won’t take place until the morning. Dow stock Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported after the bell on Wednesday and continued on a conference call shortly thereafter. As always, our focus is on looking beyond the headline numbers to forward guidance, as well as relevant comments from management on the call. CPI numbers may provide more quantitative data than management comments, but they appear to be lagging behind and heavily skewed by housing data as we wrote about last month. Management comments are in real time and expect. Here are some other earnings reports and economic numbers to watch next week: Monday, February 13 Before the bell: TreeHouse Foods (THS), Teradata (TDC), Monday.com (MNDY), Dingdong (DDL), Check Point Software (CHKP ) After the bell: Amkor Tech (AMKR), Arch Capital (ACGL), Arista Networks (ANET), Avis Budget (AVIS), Denny’s (DENN), Eversource Energy (ES), FirstEnergy (FE), IAC ( IAC), Palantir (PLTR), SolarEdge Tech (SEDG) Tuesday, February 14 Before the bell: Coca-Cola (KO), Cleveland Cliffs (CLF), Exelon (EXC), Garret Motion (GTX), GlobalFoundries (GFS), Leidos Holdings (LDOS) , Marriott International (MAR), Materialize (MTLS), PerkinElmer (PKI), Peabody Energy (BTU), WESCO (WCC), Zoetis (ZTS), Cae (CAE) After the bell: AirBnB (ABNB) ), Akamai (AKAM) , AMMO (POWW), Andersons (ANDE), Conduent (CNDT), GoDaddy (GDDY), GXO Logistics (GXO), Herbalife (HLF), Nu Holdings (NU), Suncor Energy (SU), Ternium (TX) 8: 30 am ET: Consumer Price Index Wednesday, February 15 Before lo Companies: Analog Devices (ADI ), Barrick Gold (GOLD), Biogen (BIIB), Cellebrite (CLBT), Fidelity National (FIS), Generac (GNRC), Kraft Heinz (KHC), Krispy Kreme (DNUT), Lithia & Driveway (LAD), Martin Marietta (MLM), Owens Corning (OC), Ryder Systems (R), Sonic Auto (SAH), Sunoco (SUN), Trade Desk (TTD), Wabtec (WAB) After the bell: Albemarle (ALB) , Ameren (AEE) , American International Group (AIG), American Water Works (AWK), Boston Beer (SAM), Bowlero (BOWL), CF Industries (CF), Community Health (CYH), Energy Transfer (ET), EQT Corp (EQT), Equinix (EQIX), Invitation Homes (INVH), Marathon Oil (MRO), Nutrien (NTR), Resideo Tech (REZI), RingCentral (RNG), Roku (ROKU), Seagen (SGEN), Shopify ( SHOP), Twilio ( TWLO ), Upwork ( UPWK ), Zillow ( Z ) 8:30 am ET: Retail Sales 9:15 am ET: Industrial Production & Capacity Utilization Thursday, February 16 Before the bell: Bloomin’ Brands ( BLMN ), Cenovus (CVE) ), Constellation Energy (CEG), Crocs (CROX), Datadog (DDOG), Entergy (ETR), EPAM Systems (EPAM), Hasbr o (HAS), Henry Schein (HSIC). ), Hyatt Hotels (H), KBR (KBR), Kelly Services (KLYA), Lab Corp (LH), Nestle (NSRGY), Paramount (PARA), PBF Energy (PBF), Pool Corp (POOL), Sage Therapeutics ( SAGE), Shake Shack (SHAK), Toast (TOST), Tower Semi (TSEM), Vulcan Materials (VMC), Watsco (WSO), Zevra Tech (ZBRA) After the bell: Agnico-Eagle (AEM), Applied Materials ( AMAT ), Consolidated Energy (ED), Digital Realty (DLR), DoorDash (DASH), DraftKings (DKNG), Dropbox (DBX), Redfin Corp (RDFN), Texas Roadhouse (TXRH), Vale (VALE) 8:30 am ET : Early Claims 8:30 am ET: Home Starts & Building Permits 8:30 am ET: Producer Price Index Friday, February 17 Before the bell: AutoNation (AN), CenterPoint Energy (CNP), Deere & Co (DE) Looking again Despite the slight gain there, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week down 0.17%. The S&P 500 lost 1.11%, and the Nasdaq lost 2.41% in its worst week of 2023. However, all three stock benchmarks are still positive so far, with the Nasdaq advancing nearly 12% year-to-date. lead the way. Heavyweight techs have suffered greatly in the market’s tumultuous past year. It was a very mild week on the economic front, with only initial unemployment claims on Thursday coming in at 196,000 for the week ending February 4, an increase of 13,000 from the previous week and above the expected 190,000. Under the hood, energy was the only sector to finish higher for the week, with communication services leading to the downside followed by consumer discretionary and real estate. The US dollar index hovered above the 103 level. Gold traded below $1,900 an ounce. The price of WTI Crude is hovering just under $80 per barrel, while the yield on the 10-year Treasury is around 3.75%. Within the portfolio, we received solid quarterly results from industrial gas and engineering giant Linde ( LIN ); A disappointing quarter from the automation company Emerson Electric (EMR), and a great quarter from Disney (DIS) as the recently returned CEO Bob Iger laid out much-needed plans to overhaul the company. (See here for a complete list of stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a CNBC Investing Club subscriber with Jim Cramer, you will receive trade alerts before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling shares in his charitable trust portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing a trade alert before executing a trade. THE ABOVE INVESTMENT CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY, ALONG WITH THE DISCLAIMER. No fiduciary obligation or duty is, or is created, based on the receipt of the information provided in connection with the investment club. 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Consumers are already feeling the pinch from higher food prices as inflation rises.
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As earnings season begins to wind down, Wall Street this week turned its focus to the main measure of retail inflation, which we expect will show further declines.