Here are the 3 big things we're watching in the stock market in the week ahead

CNBC Finance

9 min read

The S & P 500 kept its record run alive last week, boosted by a strong batch of earnings reports that showed the artificial intelligence spending boom isn't slowing down. Even more earnings are on the way in the coming week. Plus, the jobs market will be under the microscope. The market's blistering rally in recent weeks has occurred despite continued disruptions to global energy supplies in the Middle East. Enthusiasm for the AI trade and signs of a resilient U.S. economy have triumphed over worries about elevated oil prices. This tension remains something to keep an eye on. But at the moment, the bulls are in control. Now, let's get into the three biggest things on our radar this week. 1. Earnings: A trio of Club names are set to deliver quarterly results this week. All revenue and EPS estimates are courtesy of data provider LSEG. Electrical equipment supplier Eaton reports on Tuesday morning. The main theme of this report is the AI buildout and the resulting order growth for Eaton. In the fourth quarter, Eaton saw a roughly 200% increase in data center orders within its Electrical Americas segment, its largest. Where will that figure be this time around? Eaton makes a bunch of products used in data centers that collectively feed the power-hungry server racks with consistent and reliable electricity. That's no longer all. Thanks to a wise acquisition of Boyd Thermal, which closed in March, Eaton is now in the liquid cooling business. This moves them even closer to the AI chips â obviously a lucrative place to be these days. We expect to hear more about Boyd on the earnings call. Eaton's order backlog will be another focus. It totaled $19.6 billion at the end of 2025. With Eaton ramping up manufacturing capacity, earnings this year are expected to be stronger in the second half of the year. Revenue : $7.08 billion EPS : $2.74 DuPont also reports Tuesday morning, and one of our biggest focuses will be on the performance of its Healthcare & Water Technologies segment, the company's most exciting since spinning off its electronics business last fall into the standalone Qnity . That segment is expected to see mid-digits organic growth this year. Its other reporting unit, called Diversified Industrials, is projected to grow low single digits, helped in part by a stabilization in U.S. construction activity and aerospace strength. DuPont is the kind of company that investors worry could be hurt by war-related slowdowns in economic activity, so the company's commentary on any changes to customer behavior since late February will be valuable. Revenue : $1.67 billion EPS : $0.48 Arm Holdings is our final report of the week on Wednesday night. This will be Arm's first earnings call since debuting its AI-focused central processing unit (CPU) for data centers in March â and its first since we took a stake on April 20. No doubt, the CPU, dubbed the AGI CPU, will be a big conversation on the earnings call, as this marks a strategic shift for the company into designing a complete chip rather than simply licensing its Arm instruction set to other chipmakers in exchange for royalties. As far as the quarter on deck, though, Arm's revenues will be driven by royalties and licensing fees because the AGI CPU isn't on the market yet. Booming AI demand should fuel strong growth for Arm's cloud revenue in its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter. One question mark is the health of the smartphone royalty stream going forward, as sky-high memory prices are expected to squeeze that market . In a note to clients Friday, analysts at Morgan Stanley said the trajectory of Arm's operating expenses in its fiscal 2027 is a focus for investors. The contribution of SoftBank to Arm's license revenues is another area to watch, Morgan Stanley said. Last quarter, SoftBank represented $200 million of $505 million in license revenue. Revenue : $1.47 billion EPS : $0.58 A couple non-Club earnings reports worth flagging because they're tied to the AI trade: Chipmaker AMD reports on Tuesday night, as does optical technology supplier and Nvidia partner Lumentum. Coherent, another optical player and Nvidia partner, will release results on Wednesday night. And then on Thursday, we'll hear from CoreWeave, the AI cloud computing provider. Away from the data center, Club name Cardinal Health's two main rivals, Cencora and McKesson, report on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. 2. Corning's investor day: Fresh off a quarter that was stronger than the stock pullback indicated , Corning holds an investor day on Wednesday in New York. The AI boom is fueling demand for Corning's fiber-optic technology inside data centers, so we expect to hear plenty of bullish updates. Specifically, Corning plans to update and extend its "Springboard" growth initiative out two more years to 2030. For now, Corning's Springboard plan is expected to add $11 billion in incremental annualized sales through 2028. We'll see where that target goes next. We would also love to hear any more details on Corning's long-term supply agreements with three hyperscalers (only Meta has been publicly disclosed). Are there any more on the soon on the way? Corning will also unveil what it calls its "Photonics Market-Access Platform," which may offer insight into its roadmap for fiber replacing copper inside server racks , not just connecting them. Finally, while still relatively small, Corning's solar business is growing fast and becoming an increasing point of emphasis for management. It certainly helps to have diversification away from the data center, so this will likely get some time in the sun at the investor day too. CEO Wendell Weeks will be joining Jim Cramer on "Mad Money" on Wednesday night. 3. Jobs, jobs, jobs: The usual slate of monthly labor market reports is due out. It kicks off Tuesday with the Job Openings and Labor TurnoverÂ SurveyÂ (JOLTS), which is used to gauge the tightness of the jobs market; a very tight labor market can be a source of inflation, but that's not a major risk right now. Keep in mind: the JOLTS report operates on a slight lag, though, so Tuesday's data will cover the month of March. The week's other big releases â ADP's private payroll survey and the government's official nonfarm payroll report â are for April. On Wednesday morning, economists polled by FactSet expect ADP to show job gains of 95,000 in April. For the nonfarm report on Friday morning, the consensus is for 60,000 additions. As Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last week , the labor market has showed "more and more signs of stability." We'll look for more of those signs in the upcoming batch of data. Week ahead Monday, May 4 Durable goods and factory orders at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH), Axsome Therapeutics (AXSM), CNA Financial (CNA), Hess Midstream (HESM), Krystal Biotech (KRYS), Tyson Foods (TSN), Twist Bioscience (TWST) After the bell: Palantir Technologies (PLTR), Transocean (RIG), onsemi (ON), Duolingo (DUOL), BWX Technologies (BWXT), Pinterest (PINS), Ero Copper (ERO), Fabrinet (FN) Tuesday, May 5 JOLTS report at 10 a.m. ET ISM Services PMI at 10 a.m. ET Census Bureau's new home sales at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: DuPont (DD), Eaton (ETN), Shopify (SHOP), PayPal (PYPL), Energy Transfer (ET), Pfizer (PFE), KKR (KKR), Cipher Mining (CIFR), Fiserv (FISV), American Electric Power (AEP), DigitalOcean (DOCN), Harley-Davidson (HOG), Ocular Therapeutix (OCUL), Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), GlobalFoundries (GFS), Marathon Petroleum (MPC), Ferrari (RACE) After the bell: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Lumentum Holdings (LITE), Supermicro (SMCI), AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), Arista Networks (ANET), Astera Labs (ALAB), Hecla Mining (HL), Strategy (MSTR), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), BigBear.ai (BBAI), Tempus AI (TEM), Devon Energy (DVN) Wednesday, May 6 ADP private payroll report at 8:15 a.m. ET Before the bell: Walt Disney (DIS), Hut 8 Mining (HUT), Kraft Heinz (KHC), Uber Technologies (UBER), CVS Health (CVS), Amcor (AMCR), Carter's (CRI), Cenovus Energy (CVE), Trinity Capital (TRIN), Apollo Global Management (APO), Instacart (CART), EOG Resources (EOG) After the bell: Coherent (COHR), IonQ (IONQ), Axon Enterprise (AXON), Arm Holdings (ARM), AppLovin (APP), Dutch Bros (BROS), Fastly (FSLY), Beyond Meat (BYND), Snap (SNAP), Albemarle (ALB) Thursday, May 7 Initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET Before the bell: ACM Research (ACMR), ARKO Corp. (ARKO), Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (BXSL), BlackSky Technology (BKSY), Datadog (DDOG), Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA), McDonald's (MCD), 1-800-Flowers.com (FLWS), GigaCloud Technology (GCT), Planet Fitness (PLNT), TripAdvisor (TRIP), Unity (U) After the bell: CoreWeave (CRWV), IREN Limited (IREN), Coinbase Global (COIN), Opendoor Technologies (OPEN), Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI), MercadoLibre (MELI), Red Cat Holdings (RCAT), SoundHound AI (SOUN), Affirm Holdings (AFRM), Monster Beverage (MNST), Rocket Lab USA (RKLB), Trade Desk (TTD), Toast (TOST), McKesson (MCK), Cloudflare (NET), Gilead Sciences (GILD), NuScale Power (SMR), DraftKings (DKNG), MP Materials (MP), 10x Genomics (TXG), Block (XYZ), Airbnb (ABNB), Axcelis Technologies (ACLS), Corsair Gaming (CRSR), Expedia (EXPE), Grindr (GRND), HubSpot (HUBS), Innodata (INOD), nLIGHT (LASR), Rocket Companies (RKT), RingCentral (RNG) Friday, May 8 Nonfarm payrolls report at 8:30 a.m. ET University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey at 10 a.m. ET (preliminary) Before the bell: Wendy's (WEN), Algonquin Power & Utilities (AQN), Dauch Corporation (DCH), Enbridge (ENB), Arbor Realty Trust (ABR), AMC Networks (AMCX), Embraer (EMBJ), Plains All American Pipeline (PAA), Plains GP Holdings (PAGP) (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long ETN, DD, ARM, GLW and META. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

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Here are the 3 big things we're watching in the stock market in the week ahead

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