With stocks careening and bond yields hitting record lows every day – the question on Wall Street next week will remain – when will the selling end and why?
Real-time data, such as weekly numbers, will provide clues on what’s going on in the economy right now as the spreading coronavirus has many worried about the economic impact.
Watch weekly jobless claims: If employers start to lay-off workers it will show up there first.
One other number to watch: the University of Michigan will provide the first look at how consumers felt in early March.
Software giants Oracle and Adobe are on the earnings calendar next week. As is chipmaker Broadcom. It will be interesting to see what Broadcom says about its supply chain and how sales are doing as the coronavirus spreads. Chip demand was already soft before the outbreak because one of Broadcom’s customers is Chinese tech company Huawei — currently a target of U.S. sanctions.
Retail gets a quarterly update from the Gap Inc. The struggling clothing chain just announced a new CEO and recently scrapped plans to spin off Old Navy.
And Dollar General reports fourth-quarter results.
One other event to watch: new Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf will be in the hot seat before the House Financial Service Committee, in the first of several hearings looking at the bank’s 2016 account scandal. Scharf wasn’t on the job during that time.
