Here are the 2 big things we're watching in the stock market in the week ahead

CNBC

2 days ago

President Donald Trump 's tariff saga continues to add new twists and turns. In the week ahead, Wall Street should be braced for more of the same. These days, tariffs are just a fact of life for investors. And they defined the market again last week. Another fact that is increasingly harder to ignore: The market is showing the capacity to move on things other than just trade headlines. That was on display last week with Nvidia 's earnings providing a lift to the artificial intelligence cohort. Sure, when push comes to shove, the economic impact of Trump's tariffs will likely be the biggest driver of corporate earnings going forward and the market's trajectory. But trade headlines cannot be the only thing that consumes us, especially when they can change on a dime and we're looking to invest for the long-term. With that in mind, there's quite a bit on the economic calendar in the coming days, including a look at U.S. construction spending and a checkup on the manufacturing and services sector from the Institute for Supply Management. But the most important batch of data concerns the U.S. labor market, at a time when investors are closely watching out for any cracks in the economy during Trump's trade war. 1. The parade of jobs data begins Tuesday morning with the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, often called the JOLTS report for short. It all leads up to Friday. The purpose of JOLTS, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is to measure the amount of slack in the labor market, which, for investors, can shed light on the health of the economy and potential wage inflation. When there are a lot more job openings than available workers, that means workers generally have a better ability to demand higher wages. This week's report is for April. It's now June, so it's more backward-looking than the rest of the week's numbers. We get payroll processing firm ADP's monthly look at private job creation on Wednesday. Typically looked at for clues about what the official government jobs report will say a few days later, the ADP report for May is expected to show 112,000 jobs were added in the month, according to Dow Jones. Thursday brings the usual weekly jobless claims report. After last week's report showed continuing claims were at their highest levels since November 2021, the market will be particularly keyed into this number. In general, economists and investors alike value this report for its weekly nature, believing that it can snuff out underlying softness in the labor market before monthly reports can, given the shorter lag time. To be sure, it's more important to watch the trend line here rather than reaching sweeping conclusions from only a single week. These three reports are building up to Friday's nonfarm payrolls report, which economists expect to show the U.S. added 125,000 jobs in May, according to Dow Jones. That would be down from 177,000 in April. The unemployment rate in May, meanwhile, is expected to stay steady at 4.2%. The biggest question that investors will be trying to answer from the data: What does this mean for the likelihood of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts this year? The central bank's dual mandate is to foster price stability and maximum employment, but the uncertain effects of tariffs have stoked inflation concerns at the same time, they could also soften the labor market. When Fed Chairman Jerome Powell insists the Fed will remain data dependent, this is one of the key reports they're looking at. 2. Within our portfolio, the main events are the earnings reports from CrowdStrike and Broadcom on Tuesday and Thursday nights, respectively. Beyond the headline revenue and earnings, the key metrics to watch in CrowdStrike's fiscal 2026 first-quarter earnings report are annual recurring revenue, or ARR, and operating margins. Last quarter, the cybersecurity provider reported ARR growth of 23% to $4.24 billion. Consensus for the upcoming quarter is $4.42 billion, which would imply a year-over-year increase of 21%, according to FactSet. As for operating margins, it was the company's soft full-year guidance on this metric, among others, in early March that contributed to a nearly 21% sell-off in the stock in just four sessions. There was also some general noise in its last earnings report tied to the July 2024 global IT outage caused by a faulty CrowdStrike software update. Considering the underlying business momentum was still intact, we bought into that earnings sell-off twice — first on March 5 then again on March 10 — and the stock is up nearly 50% since that last buy. We're bracing for more volatility around this earnings report, but are keeping a long-term view given the importance of cybersecurity spending in the digital age. The LSEG consensus estimate, as of Friday, is for revenue of $1.104 billion and EPS of 65 cents. Broadcom's fiscal 2025 second-quarter earnings report on Thursday night will largely be about the growth of its custom AI chip business, which a quarter ago grew 77% year over year to $4.1 billion. For Broadcom's second quarter, the market is looking for 7% sequential growth to $4.4 billion, according to Oppenheimer. We'll also be listening for CEO Hock Tan's comments on Broadcom's custom chip customers — are there any new companies that it is engaged with? Last time, we heard there were two more potential clients. And for its existing customers, which are believed to include Club name Meta Platforms and ex-portfolio stock Alphabet , does Tan have any color to share about their future spending plans? Elsewhere, we'll be looking for additional progress on its VMWare acquisition, which is part of Broadcom's sizable software business that helps counter the cyclicality inherent to its hardware chip business. That cyclicality has been a big drag on its legacy chip business for an extended period of time, though it's gotten a little better lately. Any additional progress in this side of the chip business would be a cherry on top. The LSEG's consensus for Broadcom is for revenue of $14.99 billion and EPS of $1.56. Broadcom was our best-performing stock last week. We booked some profits in our position on Tuesday during the market's big post-holiday rally. Week ahead Monday, June 2 Census Bureau's Monthly Construction Spending Report at 10 a.m. ET ISM Manufacturing PMI at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Campbell Soup (CPB), Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) After the close: No reports of note Tuesday, June 3 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey at 10 a.m. ET Census Bureau's New Orders for Manufactured Goods Report at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Dollar General (DG), NIO Inc. (NIO), Signet Jewelers (SIG), Ollie's Bargain Outlet (OLLI), Ferguson (FERG) After the close: CrowdStrike (CRWD) , Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Wednesday, June 4 ADP Private Payrolls Report at 8:15 a.m. ET ISM Services PMI at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Dollar Tree (DLTR), THOR Industries (THO) After the close: MongoDB (MDB), Five Below (FIVE), PVH Corp. (PVH), ChargePoint (CHPT) Thursday, June 5 Initial Jobless Claims at 8:30 a.m. ET Before the bell: Ciena (CIEN), Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (CBRL), Lands' End (LE), Brown-Forman (BF), Hello Group (MOMO), Toro Company (TTC), Duluth Holdings (DLTH), Victoria's Secret (VSCO) After the close: Broadcom (AVGO), DocuSign (DOCU), lululemon athletica (LULU), Rubrik (RBRK), ServiceTitan (TTAN), Petco Health and Wellness (WOOF), Mission Produce (AVO), Vail Resorts (MTN), Quanex Building Products (NX) Friday, June 6 Nonfarm Payrolls Report at 8:30 a.m. ET Before the bell: ABM Industries (ABM) (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long NVDA, CRWD, AVGO. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. 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