The major tech company reporting this week received a mixed reception. While Microsoft investors were reassured by the strong financial results and strategic capital expenditure restraint, Meta fell roughly 8% post-earnings as massive multi-billion-dollar future AI lease and compute obligations spooked traders.
This has led to a volatile week for US investors. However, as has usually been the case recently, the dip has been bought, and the S&P 500 has returned to where it started the week:
[Source: IG]
The lack of tech exposure helped the FTSE 100, which made new highs this week:
Here’s what we can look forward to next week:
Economic Calendar
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Monday 3 Aug |
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07:00 |
Germany |
Retail Sales |
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15:00 |
United States |
PMI Manufacturing |
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Tuesday 4 Aug |
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15:00 |
United States |
Balance of Trade Factory Orders |
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Wednesday 5 Aug |
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15:00 |
United States |
ISM Services PMI |
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15:30 |
United States |
Crude Oil Inventories |
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Thursday 6 Aug |
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10:00 |
Euro Area |
Retail Sales |
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13:30 |
United States |
Continuing Claims Initial Jobless Claims |
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Friday 7 Aug |
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07:00 |
Germany |
Balance of Trade |
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07:00 |
UK |
Halifax/Lloyds House Price Index |
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13:30 |
United States |
Non-Farm Payrolls Unemployment Rate |
US Employment
A quiet week for economic news, with only employment figures of note Stateside. We get new claims data on Thursday before non-farm payrolls and the official unemployment rate on Friday.
The data is expected to show modest stabilisation in hiring, with the key market-moving metric, non-farm payrolls, expected to rebound to around 120k jobs, recovering from June’s downside surprise of just 57k.
[All charts in this section: Trading Economics]
The data will likely dictate when the Fed implements the next highly anticipated interest rate increase.
If the NFP number comes in well above the expected 120k level, then the Fed may move to raise rates sooner rather than later. This may cause a sell-off in equities and bonds, with the dollar strengthening against other major currencies. Conversely, a second unexpectedly low figure will see the dollar weaken, and the Fed delay its hike. Equities may not rebound in this scenario as the risk of a recession may start to be priced in, instead. Probably only an inline print will be bullish for equity markets.
UK HPI
In the UK, Friday brings us the Halifax House Price Index, now rebranded as Lloyds. There is no doubt that UK house prices have been weak, with the latest annual figure for this index coming in at just 0.6% year-on-year,…
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