Econ Data Comes Out This Week, Along with NVDA, WMT Earnings

Monday, November 17, 2025

With the federal government having finally ended its shutdown last week, this week we can get back to the business of examining economic reports. Chief of these is expected to be the U.S. Employment Report due Thursday morning. Where we last left off, an average of only +29K new jobs created over the past four months was making the Fed nervous about an  unraveling labor market, which helped them decide to cut interest rates even as inflation metrics were ticking back up.

Compare this to the previous four-month average +122K and the +209K in the four months before that. The Unemployment Rate reached +4.3% in our last print, the highest since October 2021 (when unemployment was still falling precipitously; we had been as high as +14.9% at the Covid peak in April of 2020. New data on non-farm payrolls will be a welcome sight, whether or not the situation improves. Either way, we’ll no longer be flying blind.

Despite President Trump’s recent claim that the U.S. has “virtually no inflation,” last Friday he reversed tariff policy on food staple imports. These include beef, coffee and bananas, from countries like Guatemala, Ecuador and Argentina. Overall, more than 200 household items will be exempted from tariff policies, and just in time for Americans to prep their Thanksgiving dinner festivities. 
 

Empire State Growth Highest in a Year: 18.7

The Empire State Manufacturing Index for November came in more than 3x higher than expected to 18.7 this morning, following 10.7 the previous month and the highest since November of last year. It’s also the fourth positive manufacturing print for the state of New York in the last five months. New orders and shipments were both up, while input and selling prices pulled back to still-elevated levels.

From March through June, Empire State manufacturing reported sub-zero tallies, so this reversal is welcome news indeed. That said, optimism among manufacturers in New York going forward has come down somewhat in this latest survey, to 19.1 from 30.3 last time around.

Earnings Update Ahead of the Bell

Calendar Q3 earnings season is winding down this week, and the reason we know this is because NVIDIA NVDA is reporting earnings this week, on Wednesday after the bell. Expectations are still enormous from the $4.6 trillion-dollar market cap chipmaker: +53.1% on earnings growth and +55.7% on revenues. It has beaten earnings estimates in three of the last four quarters by an average of +3.56%. NVIDIA currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

This is also a big earnings week for retailers. These include Home Depot HD on Tuesday, Target TGT and The TJX Companies TJX Wednesday and Walmart WMT on Thursday. All of these companies are presently Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)-rated firms going into their earnings prints.

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