Week ahead in the stock market... | Week-Ahead Brief #5

The week in one minute

Monday is closed. Labor Day shuts the NYSE, the Nasdaq and the bond market. Four sessions starting tomorrow.
Wednesday, 1:00pm ET: Apple's iPhone event, the first under John Ternus. A SpaceX share lock-up ends the same day.
Thursday, 5:00pm ET: Oracle and Adobe report in the same hour.
Oracle needs to prove its $638 billion backlog translates to actual revenue.
Adobe’s earnings, as with CRM and MSFT, could further signal the ‘SaaS-pocalypse’ is over and AI is not entirely replacing established software.
Friday, 8:30am ET: August CPI, the last inflation reading before the Fed votes on September 16. July printed 3.4%.
A September hike is priced near 60% after payrolls beat every estimate.

The week, day by day

This week's calendar: every report with its session, plus the macro dates. Earnings, with consensus and implied moves, is the earnings calendar.

Each morning's timetable is found on /today.

Monday, Sep 7

US stock and bond markets closed for Labor Day. Trading resumes Tuesday at 9:30am ET. Every 2026 closure is on the market hours page.

Tuesday, Sep 8

No US data. Before the open: United Natural Foods (implied move 13.1%).
After the close: GameStop (implied 7.2%), Casey's (9.0%), ServiceTitan (13.6%). GameStop pre-released most of its quarter on August 31; the headline profit is mostly gains on its eBay stake.

Wednesday, Sep 9

1:00pm ET: Apple's "Surprise and Shine" event. Treasury's $39bn 10-year auction closes the same hour.
Before the open: Chewy (implied 10.7%), Signet (11.0%), Korn Ferry (7.1%). After the close: AeroVironment (13.1%), Cooper Companies (8.4%).
SpaceX's day-90 lock-up: up to 319 million shares become sellable. More below, and on the lock-up calendar.

Thursday, Sep 10

8:15am ET: ECB decision, Lagarde at 8:45am. All 65 economists in the Reuters poll expect a quarter-point rise to 2.50%, so the guidance matters more than the move.
8:30am ET: August PPI, with weekly jobless claims. July's producer prices were flat on the month and up 4.7% on the year.
After the close: Oracle (call 5:00pm ET, implied 11.7%), Adobe (call 5:00pm ET, about 8%), RH (13.4%), Copart (7.9%).

Friday, Sep 11

8:30am ET: August CPI. The CPI hub carries the scenarios.
10:00am ET: University of Michigan's preliminary September sentiment. Before the open: Kroger (5.7%).
The Fed is in blackout through September 17, so no policymaker comments on any of it.

Implied moves are the options market's priced reaction as of Friday's close, from the earnings calendar. The full macro list is on the economic calendar.

Friday decides hike or not on the 16th

The jobs report changed the hike odds. August payrolls came in at +162,000 against estimates near 55,000. Then the revisions: July's minus 23,000 became plus 21,000. "The labour market is cracking" story rested on a number that’s now been revised, increasing hike odds.

The market moved. Fed funds futures priced a September hike near 60% at Friday's close, up from about 50% the day before. The 2-year Treasury yield rose to about 4.37%, its highest since January 2025, per AP. The S&P 500 closed at 7,718.60, down 0.38% on the day.

So Friday's CPI is the only report remaining. July printed 3.4% headline and 2.5% core, both on forecast. No Wall Street consensus for August exists yet. The Cleveland Fed's nowcast says 3.38% headline and 2.38% core, flat in practice. But they also expect a +0.36% inflation over last month, more than three times July's pace (largely due to fuel prices & Iran war). The annual rate looks flat because last August we also had a sharp rise in inflation.

My read: 3.4% or lower strengthens the case for holding rates. 3.6% or higher makes the hike certain, since three officials already voted for one in July. Governor Waller's last words before the blackout were "give disinflation a chance." Whether the committee agrees will be clear by 8:31am on Friday. The Fed hub tracks the odds and the dot plot preview covers what else lands on the 16th.

Oracle and Adobe, same hour

Oracle's key number to report is the backlog. In June Oracle reported $19.2 billion of revenue and remaining performance obligations of $638 billion, up 363% in a year. It has not said how long that backlog takes to become revenue, or how much comes from customers other than OpenAI. What you should look out for on Thursday is either of those two missing figures. Another reason a backlog without a timeframe is hard to judge.

Adobe's print and new CEO. On Thursday Adobe named Anil Chakravarthy its next CEO from December 1, with Shantanu Narayen moving to executive chair. The stock fell 6.7% on Friday to $266.51, and the options market lifted its priced move from 5–7% to about 8%. Adobe's own guide is ~$6.7bn in revenue and earnings per share of $6.05 to $6.10. Investors will ask: is Firefly earning money fast enough to offset AI tools pulling creative work away from Creative Cloud? Myself…I expect ADBE to do well after earnings, as thus far this earnings season almost every software company has crushed expectations and the story of ‘AI is taking our SaaS jobs!‘.

Wednesday: Apple, and a SpaceX tranche

Apple at 1:00pm ET. Expected: the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, the first folding iPhone, and probably new Watches. It is John Ternus's first keynote since taking over from Tim Cook. I’ll be watching the foldable's price and whether Apple announces a ship date. The typical AAPL pattern during launches is a rise into the event and a dip on the day. What Ternus changes for the stock.

SpaceX's next unlock. Up to 319 million Class A shares come out of lock-up on Wednesday, the 90-day milestone. That is 7% of the locked-up pool and about 2.4% of all shares outstanding. The two previous tranches went opposite ways: the stock rose 6% on August 6 and fell on August 20. Hard to guess a direction…though if I had to, I’d say minor dip on the day.

Scorecard

The week of August 17 graded out at 18 of 25 calls right, 72%, in the scorecard. The clearest miss was assuming argenx's premarket pop would fade. It kept climbing to a record near $1,040. Every entry, expected move and outcome is public in the track record.

New on the site

The homepage was rebuilt this weekend around what readers actually open: the day's schedule, the calendars and the tools. /today rebuilds itself from the calendars every five minutes. It is the page to have open at 8:29am on Friday.

Read this week

The full week-ahead piece, every figure sourced
August CPI: date, forecast, scenarios
September 16 Fed meeting: hike odds and the runway
Sector heatmap, for where Friday's CPI reaction shows up first

Last thing

Next week is bigger. The Fed decides rates on Wednesday the 16th at 2:00pm ET, with August retail sales the same morning. Friday the 18th is quad witching, and the S&P 500 rebalances at that close. Next Sunday's issue will cover it.

Know someone waiting on Friday's CPI? Forward this. New readers can subscribe at regardsofwallstreet.com, free, one email every Sunday.

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