Market Eagerly Awaits FOMC Policy Decision

We’re expecting something of a hodge-podge of economic reports this week, to a delayed jobs number Tuesday to a new Fed rate decision Wednesday to fresh earnings numbers in-between “normal” reporting seasons. Pre-market futures are basically flat overall at this hour: -0.02% on the Dow, +0.11% for the S&P 500, +0.24% on the Nasdaq and a more-robust +0.45% on the small-cap Russell 2000 at this hour.

Following a fairly meaningful dip the week before Thanksgiving, we’ve regained much of our upward trajectory. Gains year-to-date are anywhere from +12% on the Dow and Russell to +21% on the Nasdaq. This aligns nicely with Zacks Vice President Kevin Matras’ bullish analysis for 2025; he still sees room for upside from here.

Once we get next week’s 25 basis-point (bps) rate cut — which would take the Fed funds rate down to 3.50-3.75% for the first time in more than three years — it becomes a bit murkier where the catalysts for pushing markets higher will come from. Q3 earnings season will be over, holiday shopping numbers won’t be definitive until after the first of the year, and the Fed itself shows signs of resisting further cuts based on mostly favorable economic data.

What to Expect from the Stock Market Today

We don’t have any monthly economic prints out today, though after the close we expect to see fiscal Q4 earnings results from luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers TOL. The company, currently with a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), is expected to bring in marginally lower revenues year over year on earnings +5% from Q4 2024. Toll Brothers mostly builds new homes in the South and West United States.

What’s in Store This Week from Wall Street?

The big news will be Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision on monetary policy. Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s tenure has been known for its transparency to market participants; thus, we do not expect any surprises as of 2pm ET this Hump Day. Of potentially more interest will be Powell’s press conference afterwards, where reporters will no doubt take his temperature on future rate-cut possibilities.

Before this, we’ll get the delayed Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for October on Tuesday after the opening bell, expected to come in-line with the previous print of 7.2 million job openings. After the bell tomorrow we will get new earnings numbers from specialty retailers Casey’s General Stores CASY, AutoZone AZO and poster-child for meme stocks GameStop GME.

Wednesday, we get fiscal Q2 earnings results from Oracle ORCL, which is expected to see double-digit growth on both top and bottom lines, and Adobe ADBE, which the Zacks consensus projects +12% earnings growth year over year. Oracle shares have grown +30% in 2025 to date, while Adobe shares have sold off around -22% so far this year.

Thursday brings us earnings reports for chipmaker Broadcom AVGO, warehouse membership giant Costco COST and challenged athleisure retailer lululemon LULU. For an “in between” week of earnings reports, we’ll sure get a lot of data between now and the end of the week.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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