NEW YORK: Wall Street’s spotlight will fall on the consumer next week. Investors will look to earnings from major retailers and data on consumer spending with the hope that the numbers will show that Americans have indulged in some retail therapy in recent weeks.
Good news on the shopping front could provide some potential catalysts for a stock market that has stumbled a bit of late.
The last two full weeks of earnings season are packed with consumer bellwethers. Macy’s is scheduled to report results on Wednesday, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, will release quarterly earnings on Thursday, along with upscale department store Nordstrom and discount retailer Kohl’s. Home Depot, Target and Staples will follow the week after that.
Positive news about consumer spending could give the market some upward momentum, which has lagged since stocks wrapped up a strong July. The S&P 500 fell 1.1 percent this week - its worst weekly performance since June.
In the absence of strong earnings and economic data, however, analysts say the market is likely to trend lower as volume thins out heading into the latter half of August.
“We’re a consumer-driven economy, so if those earnings come in shy of expectations, the lack of personnel on Wall Street could certainly cause some weakness,” said Tom Schrader, managing director of US equity trading for Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets in Baltimore.
Earnings on the whole have topped expectations, with 67 percent of the 446 companies in the S&P 500 that had reported earnings so far beating estimates. About 54 percent of companies have reported revenue above expectations, exceeding the average of the past four quarters, but below the historical average.
The consumer discretionary sector has tallied the second-best earnings growth of the 10 S&P 500 industry sectors, with 8.5 percent growth in the second quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data. Consumer staples have been weaker, with earnings growth at 3.8 percent for the second quarter.
Consumer spending has been restrained by an increase in taxes at the start of the year, but it is expected to accelerate during the second half. Growth in the S&P 500’s consumer discretionary sector is second only to the technology sector in 2013; the consumer discretionary index has climbed 26.6 percent so far this year
Of the 13 S&P 500 companies scheduled to report next week, four are retailers. “Any commentary coming out of these late-filing retail companies is going to be interesting,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.
Despite the stock market’s pullback in the latest week, analysts say sentiment about equities remains positive. US-based stock funds marked their sixth straight week of inflows in the week ended August 7, while US-based Treasury bond funds suffered a record outflow of $3.27bn, according to Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company.
For the year, the Dow Jones industrial average has advanced 17.7 percent and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has climbed 18.6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index has gained 21.2 percent for the year.
Reuters
