The Fed, Home Depot, Target, Walmart, and More to Watch This Week

After hitting record highs last week, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes ended this week up 0.9% and 0.8%, respectively. The Dow Jones Industrial Average once again fell just shy of its first record close since December, coming up 0.2% short.

Equities jumped on Tuesday on a better-than-feared consumer price index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Stocks also shrugged off a much hotter-than-expected producer price index, released on Thursday, with all three major indexes basically flat on the day.

The main event this week will be Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech on Friday. Powell has been under constant attack from the White House and its allies, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggesting this past week that the Fed should cut interest rates by half a percentage point at its September meeting. Whether the Fed will cut at all at that meeting might be signaled during Powell’s speech. Traders have priced in a greater than 80% chance of a quarter-point cut.

Many retailers have a fiscal year that ends in January, leading them to have the stage mostly to themselves on the earnings calendar. This week sees some of the most important ones release results, which might give insight into the state of the American consumer and any potential impact from tariffs.

Home Depot will release earnings on Tuesday, followed by Lowe’s, Target, and TJX Cos. on Wednesday. Industry behemoth Walmart will announce results on Thursday, along with Ross Stores.

Fresh data on the housing market, which has been in the doldrums, will come with the release of housing starts from the Census Bureau on Tuesday and existing-home sales from the National Association of Realtors on Thursday. Also to be released on Thursday will be the Manufacturing and Services Purchasing Managers’ Indexes from S&P Global.

Monday 8/18

Palo Alto Networks reports fourth-quarter fiscal-2025 results.

The National Association of Home Builders releases its Housing Market Index for August. Consensus estimate is for a 34 reading, one point more than in July. The index tracks homebuilders’ sentiment on the single-family housing market, with readings above 50 indicating builders are optimistic about the near-term outlook and readings below 50 signifying less enthusiasm.

Tuesday 8/19

Home Depot, Jack Henry & Associates, Keysight Technologies, Medtronic, Toll Brothers, and Viking Holdings release quarterly results.

The Census Bureau reports new residential construction data for July. Economists forecast a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million privately-owned housing starts, slightly fewer than in June.

Wednesday 8/20

Analog Devices, Estee Lauder, Lowe’s, Target, and TJX Cos. announce earnings.

The Federal Open Market Committee releases the minutes from its late-July monetary-policy meeting. At that meeting, the FOMC kept the federal-funds rate unchanged at 4.25% to 4.50%, although two Federal Reserve Board Members dissented, the first double dissent by board members in more than 30 years.

Thursday 8/21

Intuit, Ross Stores, Walmart, Workday, and Zoom Communications report quarterly results.

S&P Global releases both its Manufacturing and Services Purchasing Managers’ Indexes for August. Consensus estimates are for a 49.9 reading for the Manufacturing PMI and 53.4 for the Services PMI, compared with readings of 49.8 and 55.7, respectively, in July.

The National Association of Realtors reports existing-home sales for July. The consensus call is for a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.9 million homes sold, roughly even with the June data. Existing-home sales are near their lowest levels since the aftermath of the 2008-09 financial crisis.

Friday 8/22

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo. The theme of this year’s confab, which runs from Thursday through Saturday, is “Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy.”

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