Earnings, economic data, jobs report: What's on tap this week
Earnings season ain't over yet as investors eye reports from companies like Best Buy (BBY), Big Lots (BIG), Salesforce (CRM), and Lululemon (LULU) this week ahead of Friday's jobs report. Yahoo Finance Reporter Josh Schafer breaks down the earnings schedule for this week while outlining the expectations for the Bureau of Labor Statistics' jobs data.
Video Transcript
- Earnings season winding down, but we still have a few big names reporting this week as well as some big data releases. Yahoo Finance reporter, Josh Schafer, here with the lowdown. Where does your excitement level at this week?
JOSH SCHAFER: Brad, we were just joking about this actually upstairs. I'm pretty excited still. I know it's the end of August, we don't have a lot on the calendar this week. But when you think about the calendar this week, we do still have some key economic data. I did want to start first with earnings though.
So we'll start with earnings. Like I said, Brad, a little bit less exciting but some fun stuff here. You got Best Buy on Tuesday, curious to hear-- we hear about retail theft and shrink there, that's been a big trend over the last couple of weeks. And then when you take a look at Wednesday, interested to hear from Salesforce. They've talked a lot about AI in the past, curious if they lean on that again this quarter.
And then Brad, one of our favorite companies reports on Thursday. Lululemon, I'm wearing the pants right now. You are not today but some days you are. We're going to see how they've been doing. And I think the interesting thing with Lulu to think about is they normally have a strong high-end consumer. It's sort of like an Apple of retail, if you will. And if you think if Lululemon's consumer is trading down or spending less, I think that will tell us more about the consumer than maybe some of the broader retailers that don't have as direct of a market.
But like I said, Brad, the exciting part this week is that economic calendar. When you take a look at what we have from an economic perspective this week, you can see it's pretty packed. And you take a look here, Friday's jobs day. Thursday, PCE inflation. Remember, that's the Fed's preferred inflation target.
And then really, it starts tomorrow when you have those JOLTS job openings. You also have consumer confidence. Member consumer confidence took that big swing up during the summer. We saw in the University of Michigan, which also measures consumer sentiment. That came down in August, so curious what we see from the conference board tomorrow. We're also going to have home prices.
But for me, the biggest thing this week is that labor report on Friday. And I want to just zoom in on a couple of the numbers we are looking forward to get you ready to go for this week. So when you take a look at the non-farm payrolls expected this week, you can see 168,000 expected that we added in August, that would actually be down a little bit from what we added in July. An employment rate expected to remain flat at 3.5% with average hourly earnings going up to 4.3%, that would be down a little bit from last quarter. Oh sorry, from last month.
So the key things we're looking for here if we're looking for the labor market to slow down a little bit, to keep cooling, you want to see this number around here if not lower. You want to see unemployment actually probably tick up a little bit. We haven't seen unemployment tick up in a couple of months. And average hourly wages, that is something we keep talking about, how much people are making. This is now pacing above inflation. So economists are looking for this number to also come down a little bit. But we have to wait till Friday.
- All right, I'm not wearing my Lulu pants today, you're right. I did wear my shirt over the weekend, though.
JOSH SCHAFER: You're going to wear them for earnings on Thursday.
- That's I mean, obviously head to toe for sure.
JOSH SCHAFER: Bullish.
- Yes. Josh, thanks so much for joining us today.
