While trade-related developments between the U.S. and China as well as the U.S. and the Eurozone will likely set the tone early on, there's a lot more happening in the week ahead.
Here's what investors will be watching.
Economic Data
On the economic data docket this week, we can look forward to the following:
Monday, Oct. 28: Chicago National Fed Activity Index for September.
Tuesday, Oct. 29: S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for August; September Pending Home Sales; October Consumer Confidence.
Wednesday, Oct. 30: October ADP Employment Change Report; Fed's October FOMC rate decision.
Thursday, Oct. 31: Weekly jobless claims data; September-quarter Employment Cost Index; September Personal Income & Spending; October Chicago PMI Index.
Friday, Nov. 1: IHS Markit October PMI data for Japan, China, Eurozone and the U.S.; September Construction Spending data; October Employment Report; October ISM Manufacturing Report.
As the week's data come in, we are likely to get more meaningful revisions on current quarter GDP expectations from the Atlanta Fed and the New York Fed, especially after next Friday's set of numbers.
Earnings Galore
Now let's turn back to the current earnings season. The number of quarterly reports balloons to over 880 this week, of which more than a few will be S&P 500 constituents as well as members of the Dow 30.
Here are some of the key reports that we'll be watching each day:
Monday, Oct. 28: AT&T (T) , Check Point Software (CHKP) , Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) , Akamai (AKAM) , Alphabet (GOOGL) , Beyond Meat (BYND) , NXP Semiconductor (NXPI) , T-Mobile USA (TMUS) .
Tuesday, Oct. 29: AutoNation (AN) , Corning (GLW) , Eaton (ETN) , GrubHub (GRUB) , Kellogg (K) , Mastercard (MA) , Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) , Electronic Arts (EA) , FireEye (FEYE) , Apple (AAPL) .
Wednesday, Oct. 30: Molson Coors Brewing (TAP) , Sony (SNE) , Facebook (FB) , Habit Restaurants (HABT) , Lyft (LYFT) , Starbucks (SBUX) , Universal Display (OLED) .
Thursday, Oct. 31: AMC Networks (AMCX) , Estee Lauder (EL) , Global Payments (GPN) , Ingredion (INGR) , Parker-Hannifin (PH) , Xylem (XYL) , Qorvo (QRVO) .
Friday, Nov. 1: Colgate-Palmolive (CL) , MoneyGram (MGI) , U.S. Steel (X) .
After this week, more than half of the S&P 500 constituents will have reported September-quarter results, which means we expect EPS forecasts to be refined. Current forecasts call for September-quarter earnings to fall more than 4% year over year and December-quarter earnings to rise by more than 2% on that same basis. Market watchers will be analyzing these refinements to see if 2019 S&P 500 EPS estimates still call for growth of 1.4% year over year. As those adjustments come in, we suspect we will also see some fine tuning to 2020 S&P 500 EPS estimates. Currently the consensus is calling for EPS growth of 10.3% in 2020.
Fed
Amid the earnings wave, the Fed's next FOMC meeting concludes this Wednesday. Right now, the market sees a more than 93% chance the Fed will once again cut interest rates. Should that not come to pass, the current earnings season has given us more than several examples of what happens when the market's expectations aren't met.
Rest up for a busy week!
This commentary is an excerpt from the Trifecta Stocks Roundup, a weekly feature sent to subscribers of Trifecta Stocks. Click here to learn more about this portfolio, trading ideas and market commentary product.
-- Bob Lang and Chris Versace are co-portfolio managers of Trifecta Stocks.
