The Week Ahead on Wall Street

Economic Data

Today, look out for the September Chicago Fed National Activity Index and September new home sales. In August, sales of new single-family homes in the US reached their highest level in almost 14 years. Though COVID-19 continues to batter many sectors of the economy, the residential housing market has stayed strong as interest rates remain at historically low levels and people seek out more room to work and play.

Tomorrow, September durable goods orders and September core capital goods orders are released. The August Case-Shiller National Home Price Index will also be published. This index showed that home prices climbed by 4.8% in July. Also look for the October Consumer Confidence Index, which measures how optimistic consumers are feeling about the economy. The index climbed between August and September.

On Wednesday, look for September US nominal goods deficit data, which measures the difference between the country’s exports and imports. In August, the country’s goods and services deficit was $67.1 billion—a $3.7 billion increase from July.

On Thursday, third quarter GDP is released. Q2 GDP shrank by an annualized rate of 31.4%. After states emerged from lockdowns and a wave of fiscal and monetary stimulus was injected into the financial system, the economy likely rebounded during the last quarter. In fact, economists surveyed by Bloomberg believe that GDP may have jumped at an annualized rate of 30% during Q3, which would be a postwar record. The September Pending Home Sales Index is also released on Thursday. In August, this figure was up by 8.8%.

To end the week on Friday, look for September personal income, September consumer spending, September core inflation, and the October Consumer Sentiment Index. In September, this index hit a six-month high as consumers became more optimistic heading into the fall.

Economic Data

Today, Twilio (TWLO), the cloud communications platform, will report its earnings. The company recently agreed to acquire Segment, a customer data platform, for $3.2 billion. Investors will be curious to learn more about how Twilio plans to integrate Segment into its overall business model.

On Tuesday, Microsoft (MSFT) hands in its report card. The company has been busy this quarter, from expanding its Microsoft Teams offerings and helping companies navigate remote work to partnering with SpaceX and SES to deliver satellite internet.

Visa (V) reports its earnings on Wednesday. In response to the pandemic, the company has been rolling out contactless payment systems, which are already available in 15 markets and will be coming to the US soon. Visa’s “Tap to Phone” payment-acceptance function was piloted last year and the company is betting that cell phones will help increase credit-card usage moving forward—especially in light of consumer shifts accelerated by COVID-19. Mastercard (MA) is also scheduled to report its latest results today.

Thursday will be an important day for tech earnings, with Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (FB), and Alphabet (GOOGL) reporting. These companies have all faced scrutiny from government regulators over the last quarter. Most notably, the Justice Department filed a long-anticipated antitrust lawsuit against Google last Tuesday. The tech giant faces allegations that it engages in anticompetitive behavior, specifically that it pays mobile-phone companies to keep Google as the default search engine on devices. The other three companies have also been in conflict with governments both at home and abroad. Investors may be eager to learn more about how regulatory headwinds could impact forward guidance for these tech giants.

To round out the week, ExxonMobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) will report earnings on Friday. The price of oil continues to hover at about $40 per barrel. Demand for air travel remains low, which continues to create challenges for oil companies.

The Week Ahead at SoFi

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