Big earnings reports to watch this week

Big earnings reports to watch this week - Major Tech Titans Reporting: What to Expect from Apple, Microsoft, and Others

Alright, so we're staring down another round of earnings from the big tech players, and honestly, after watching the S&P 500 dip and even Microsoft take a bit of a hit recently, you might be feeling a knot in your stomach. But here's what I'm really looking at, beyond just the headline numbers: the massive AI spending boom isn't slowing down; we're talking capital expenditure growth potentially over 35% year-over-year through the first half of '26, which is just wild. And get this, those cloud service revenues, especially the ones tied to their own custom AI chips, they're actually expected to show robust quarter-over-quarter growth, probably enough to make up for any softness in the old-school software stuff. Think about it: one major hardware supplier, the one making those next-gen AI accelerators exclusively for these giants, has a backlog stretching well into Q3 '26—that tells you something about internal demand, doesn't it? Now, it's not all smooth sailing, because geopolitical trade agreements are messing with the supply chain for advanced semiconductors, which could squeeze gross margins by 50 to 100 basis points compared to what they initially hoped for. But on the flip side, they're actually speeding up investments in post-quantum cryptography, pulling deployment for high-security clients from late '26 to mid-'26. And it's not just talk, because we're seeing actual enterprise usage for large language models on private clouds jump an average of 22% last quarter, meaning companies are getting seriously hooked, not just dabbling. It's that deeper dependency that really matters, you know? What's also fascinating is how much social sentiment, like what folks are chattering about in financial forums, actually correlated with the opening share price of the biggest software player last week—a pretty strong 0.82 coefficient. So, as these reports drop, I think we really need to watch for those granular details on AI infrastructure spend, how their proprietary hardware is performing, and any subtle shifts in their margin guidance, because that's where the real story lives.

Big earnings reports to watch this week - Key Consumer Brands on the Docket: Analyzing McDonald's and Disney Earnings

Okay, so after all that talk about the big tech titans, you might be wondering, "But what about the stuff we actually *buy* every day?" That's totally fair, because consumer spending tells a different, really grounded story about where folks are at, you know? And honestly, when McDonald's and Disney drop their numbers, it’s like getting a peek into our own wallets and what we’re willing to shell out for. With McDonald's, it’s pretty interesting; their digital sales in those top international spots actually zoomed past 30%, which is a solid jump from last year. But here’s a wrinkle: I'm hearing franchisees are coughing up about 18% more for those AI-driven personalization upgrades in their kitchens, which

Big earnings reports to watch this week - Market Movers: Stocks Like Cisco and Robinhood Facing Post-Report Volatility

Look, after watching the markets digest these latest numbers, you can really see how quickly things can swing, right? It’s like standing on a pier when the tide changes; one minute everything seems solid, and the next, you’re dealing with some serious chop, especially with names like Cisco and Robinhood popping up in the volatility conversation. We saw that networking giant take a real dip, more than 8% in some cases, simply because their forward guidance on enterprise hardware just missed what the analysts were hoping for by a hair—that’s how sensitive things are to expectations right now. And you know that moment when the trading platform reports drop? Well, the data showed retail traders got really active, with market orders spiking over 40% right after the numbers came out, which tells me they were either quickly piling in or rushing for the exits. It’s fascinating how the market focuses on seemingly small misses in revenue projections, especially when cloud growth decelerates even slightly below that 15% mark, because then those near-term option volatility indexes just jump up 12 points overnight. I’m not sure if it’s just over-leveraged positions snapping, but when negative chatter on those niche financial boards spikes, it seems to have a real, measurable effect on how the stock opens the next morning, sometimes showing a strong inverse correlation. We’ll need to keep a close eye on whether those initial wild moves—the ones that jump more than 1.5 standard deviations—settle back down as the algorithms digest the supply chain commentary, because that risk disclosure often matters more than the immediate margin hit. Honestly, it feels like investors are treating these reports less like a scorecard and more like a stress test for the entire infrastructure layer of the market.

Big earnings reports to watch this week - Beyond Earnings: Contextualizing Reports with Economic Indicators Like the Jobs Report

Look, we spend so much time drilling into the revenue and EPS numbers when earnings reports drop, but honestly, that's only half the picture, right? We can’t just look at a company’s internal snapshot and assume we know the whole weather system they’re operating in. Think about it this way: if you’re trying to figure out how well a boat is sailing, you need to know if there’s a gale force wind whipping up the waves outside, and that’s what these macro indicators give us. For instance, that Non-Farm Payrolls report from the month before? Apparently, it correlates with the forward P/E ratios for cyclical sectors by about 0.65, which is a pretty tight link suggesting valuation expectations are already baked in based on job strength. And here’s something specific I found interesting: when initial jobless claims stay above 220,000 for three weeks straight, companies tend to slash their upcoming revenue guidance by nearly 2% on average—that’s not noise, that’s a signal. We've also seen that when the manufacturing PMI dips below 48.5, industrial firms usually report a nasty 400-basis-point slide in how fast they're turning over inventory in the next couple of reports. So, when we’re reading those prepared remarks this week, don't just look at what they *say* they did; check if the unemployment rate ticked up just 0.2% last month, because history shows that often precedes a 150-basis-point cut in tech capital expenditure guidance. It’s about connecting those external dots to see if the management team is talking about a calm sea when the NFP data screams squall warning.