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Russian (RU) • Fed FOMC minutes, Walmart earnings will be in focus in the holiday-shortened week ahead.
• Toast, a leader in restaurant technology, is expected to deliver a strong earnings report that could propel its stock higher.
• Occidental Petroleum faces significant challenges that could hamper its near-term growth, making it a stock to approach with caution.
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U.S. stocks closed mixed on Friday, but the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 still scored solid weekly gains amid bullish momentum in tech shares. For the week, the S&P 500 rose 1.5%, while the Nasdaq rallied 2.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.5%.
Source: Investing.com
The holiday-shortened week ahead is expected to be an eventful one as investors continue to gauge the outlook for the economy, interest rates, and inflation. U.S. markets will be closed Monday for the Presidents Day holiday.
In a data-light week, most of the focus will fall on the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s January FOMC meeting. This could give some insight into the future path of interest rates. As of Sunday morning, traders are pricing in at least one 25 basis-point rate cut by the end of 2025, with a roughly 50% chance of an additional cut, according to the Investing.com Fed Monitor Tool.
Source: Investing.com
Elsewhere, in corporate earnings, Walmart (NYSE:WMT), Carvana (NYSE:CVNA), Booking Holdings (NASDAQ:BKNG), Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET), Analog Devices (NASDAQ:ADI), Block (NYSE:XYZ), Rivian (NASDAQ:RIVN), Toast (NYSE:TOST), Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), and Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) are some of the notable names lined up to report results.
Regardless of which direction the market goes, below I highlight one stock likely to be in demand and another which could see fresh downside. Remember though, my timeframe is just for the week ahead, Monday, February 17 - Friday, February 21.
Toast, a leading provider of cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) systems for restaurants, is poised for a strong earnings beat when it delivers its fourth quarter update after the closing bell on Wednesday at 4:05PM ET.
Market participants predict a sizable swing in TOST stock after the print drops, according to the options market, with a possible implied move of 13.7% in either direction. Shares gapped up 16.6% after the last earnings report in November.
In a sign of growing confidence, the restaurant management software provider, which has emerged as a key player in the restaurant technology arena, has received seven upward profit forecast revisions in recent days, with zero downward revisions.
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