What's ahead this week for Wall Street and the economy

2023-07-23 19:58

A bevy of possibly market-moving events are in store for investors this week.

What's ahead this week for Wall Street and the economy

A bevy of possibly market-moving events are in store for investors this week.

Here's a look at what's coming.

The Federal Reserve's July meeting. The Fed begins its two-day July meeting on Tuesday. The central bank is largely expected to raise interest rates by a quarter point on Wednesday after pausing in June. Traders expect a nearly 100% chance of such an outcome as of Friday afternoon, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

With expectations for July's decision mostly in consensus, investors will watch for any commentary Fed Chair Jerome Powell has to deliver on where the central bank will take rates from there.

"If they continue to put their foot on the brake to try to slow the economy down, and they get language around that [this] week, that would be problematic" for markets, said David Smith, chief investment officer at Rockland Trust.

Already, Powell and other officials have hinted that another rate hike in September could be on the table. Fed Governor Christopher Waller earlier this month reiterated the widely-held view among Fed officials that two more rate hikes are needed this year and suggested that the central bank could want to get rate hikes over with as soon as possible.

The Fed's favorite inflation gauge. The latest Personal Consumption Expenditures price index data for June is due just two days after the central bank delivers its interest rate decision for this month.

Big Tech earnings. While a bevy of companies are slated to report earnings next week, investors will closely watch results from Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta Platforms. That's because these companies have large weightings in the major indexes that have become particularly outsized this year due to an artificial intelligence-driven rally.

During the first-quarter earnings season, the market tended to have a larger reaction to companies that reported disappointing results than it did to companies that exceeded expectations. Some investors say that trend could happen again with Big Tech firms whose stocks have soared into the stratosphere this year.

"For some of these bigger names to continue to go up, it's maybe a bit of a stretch," said Dustin Thackeray, chief investment officer at Crewe Advisors.

In the same vein, a miss on expectations could lead to a sell-off. That happened last week, when the Nasdaq Composite on Thursday saw its biggest one-day decline since February after Tesla reported smaller profit margins due to price cuts in its latest quarter, and Netflix missed revenue expectations.

Record heat is killing American workers

A searing heat wave bearing down across the United States is causing deaths, hospitalizations and rising concerns about safety for Americans expected to work outside in hazardous conditions.

But the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, doesn't have the power to do much, or anything at all to protect Americans if their employers order them to work in the scorching heat, reports my colleague Chris Isidore.

The federal agency's efforts to draft a heat standard for workplaces, which the Biden Administration announced nearly two years ago, has just barely taken off and is likely on a years-long timeline. And it might not go into effect at all, even as climate change threatens to exacerbate extreme weather patterns.

Experts say that the number of workplace deaths related to high heat exposure counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — 436 deaths between 2011 and 2021 — is likely far less than the actual death toll.