Pre-Markets Flat Amid U.S.-China Trade Talks

In terms of scheduled economic reports, we’re starting off a new trading week slowly. Pre-market futures are up marginally across the board — Dow +44 points, S&P 500 +9 and the Nasdaq +17 points. Overall, these indexes are roughly flat year over year, although the S&P 500 grew above 6K for the first time since late February.

Trade negotiations between China and the U.S. have remained ongoing, and while we have no new details emerging at this hour, we still see a pending rare-earth minerals deal between China and the top three automakers in the U.S., which will help facilitate auto building and deliveries this year. That said, a comprehensive trade deal between the world’s two biggest economies remains elusive. The current deadline before announced tariffs manifest themselves is July 9th.

What to Expect from the Stock Market This Week

Our week’s biggest market data comes mid-week, when on Wednesday morning the May print for Consumer Price Index (CPI) is expected to remain steady at +0.2%, with year-over-year up 20 basis points (bps) from a month ago to +2.5%. On the core side — stripping out volatile food and energy prices — analysts see headline up 10 bps to +0.3%, +2.9% on core year over year, also up 10 bps.

Year-over-year headline CPI is also known as the “Inflation Rate,” and April’s +2.3% marks the low point over the past year. We hadn’t been lower on this metric since way back in February on 2021, at the foothills of the Great Reopening. This is as close as we have been to the Fed’s optimal +2% inflation rate. 

May’s Producer Price Index (PPI) comes out Thursday morning, and this is expected to revert back to positive +0.2% from April’s multi-year low -0.5%. (This was the deepest cut to PPI since April 2020 — near ground-zero of the Covid pandemic.) A +0.2% gets us back to where we were in February of this year. 

Year-over-year PPI on headline reached +2.4% in April, with core year over year +3.1%. This sounds bad relative to the near-2% levels of these other price indexes, but keep in mind core PPI year over year back in March was up to +4.0% — notching a 2-year high. Much of this information contains some tariff “noise” that makes these indexes harder to view clearly.

Earnings Reports Continue This Week

While we acknowledge that calendar Q1 earnings season has wrapped up, are earnings reports ever really “done”? This week, on Wednesday afternoon, brings us Oracle ORCL results for fiscal Q4, which expects modest earnings growth on +8.8% in quarterly revenues. 

Thursday after the bell we’ll hear from Adobe Systems ADBE and RH RH, formerly Restoration Hardware. Adobe is expected to fetch double-digit earnings growth, while RH’s loss per share is expected to come down considerably.

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