Week Heavy on Labor Data Commences

We have an eventful week lined up for market participants, reaching a new level of Q2 earnings reports being released — which, by Friday morning, will put us on the back half of earnings season — as well as key economic prints, especially in the labor market. Pre-market levels are up modestly at this hour, staying in the green much the way we ended last week after taking a breather with last Thursday’s selloff.

Aside from ISM Manufacturing and Services, Construction Spending, Factory Orders and overall U.S. Productivity, this is Jobs Week: a new Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) on Tuesday, private-sector payrolls for July from Automatic Data Processing (ADP) are out Wednesday morning, Initial and Continuing Jobless Claims Thursday and the big non-farm payroll results from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Friday morning, along with a new Household Survey bringing us a fresh Unemployment Rate.

Last month’s ADP headline was fairly astronomical, especially compared with expectations, where nearly half a million (497K) new private-sector payroll positions were reported. BLS figures for June came in at a more-reasonable 209K, with an Unemployment Rate ticking down to 3.6%. For July, ADP jobs totals are expected to reach 173K, whereas BLS estimates are for around 200K, with Unemployment staying at the same 3.6% rate and Average Hourly Earnings consistently up (not too high) at +0.4%.

When we look at Q2 earnings this week, the three biggest tech reports are all in the “A”s: Apple AAPL, Amazon AMZN and AMD AMD. Beyond these, we’ll hear from Qualcomm QCOM, Uber UBER and Pfizer PFE, to name but a few. So far we’ve seen overall decent performances this earnings season — far from breakout levels to the upside, but also far better than the crumbling-into-recession scenario many analysts had been predicting by the middle of 2023.

SoFi Technologies SOFI performed better than expected in Q2 this morning, posting a loss per share of -$0.06, beating estimates by a penny, on $488.8 million in sales which topped the Zacks consensus by +3%, a stellar +37% year over year for a financial institution. Total deposits grew +26% from Q2 2022, helping the stock up another +7.5% in today’s pre-market, adding to its superb gains of over +100% year to date, far outperforming the S&P 500’s +19%.

Also, On Semiconductor ON is out with Q2 earnings ahead of today’s opening bell, beating earnings expectations of $1.20 per share to $1.29 on headline, $1.33 adjusted for one-time charges. Revenues also came in ahead of estimates to $2.09 billion from $2.02 billion analysts were looking for, swinging to positive sales growth year over year from expectations. Even better, the company has ramped up expectations on both top and bottom lines for Q3: earnings of $1.27-1.41 on revenues of $2.1-2.19 billion are a nice improvement from the $1.21 per share and $2.05 billion expected, respectively.

Top 5 ChatGPT Stocks Revealed

Zacks Senior Stock Strategist, Kevin Cook names 5 hand-picked stocks with sky-high growth potential in a brilliant sector of Artificial Intelligence. By 2030, the AI industry is predicted to have an internet and iPhone-scale economic impact of $15.7 Trillion.

Today you can invest in the wave of the future, an automation that answers follow-up questions … admits mistakes … challenges incorrect premises … rejects inappropriate requests. As one of the selected companies puts it, “Automation frees people from the mundane so they can accomplish the miraculous.”

Download Free ChatGPT Stock Report Right Now >>

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report

QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Apple Inc. (AAPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Pfizer Inc. (PFE) : Free Stock Analysis Report

ON Semiconductor Corporation (ON) : Free Stock Analysis Report

Uber Technologies, Inc. (UBER) : Free Stock Analysis Report

SoFi Technologies, Inc. (SOFI) : Free Stock Analysis Report

To read this article on Zacks.com click here.

Zacks Investment Research

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Tags

More Related Articles

Info icon

This data feed is not available at this time.

Data is currently not available

Sign up for the TradeTalks newsletter to receive your weekly dose of trading news, trends and education. Delivered Wednesdays.