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

An important development from the financial markets: Here we go again: Nvidia earnings week is upon us. The world's most valuable company and the leading maker of artificial intelligence chips will deliver first-quarter earnings on Wednesday night. Of course, it will drive a ton of the action on Wall Street this week.

But it's certainly not the only thing on our radar. A pair of other Club holdings also reports. Plus, Google has a hotly anticipated developer conference, where we expect AI updates to be on display.

Economic Details

Here's a closer look (all revenue and estimates are via LSEG): 1. Retail earnings: Home Depot kicks off our week of Club earnings on Tuesday morning. Analysts at Morgan Stanley put it well in a note last week, saying the U.

housing market "continues to bounce along the bottom. " So, we aren't expecting to see an inflection point in Home Depot's results because mortgage rates and housing activity just haven't cooperated. The upshot is that the stock has been crushed since February, when the 30-year fixed mortgage rate started climbing higher, and now trades at multiyear lows.

That means expectations for Home Depot's results are low. Wall Street expects Home Depot's same-store sales growth in the first quarter to be 0. 8%, according to FactSet.

Analyst Views

When Home Depot reported Q4 results in February, it was just a few days before the start of the Iran war, which has muddied the economic backdrop and rekindled inflation. However, analysts at Bernstein said they do not expect Home Depot to revise its full-year guidance of flat to 2% same-store sales growth, as the forecast "contemplated a wide range of scenarios. " Bernstein also said Home Depot's SRS Distribution subsidiary may benefit from storm-related repair activity in the quarter, so we'll look to see whether that proved true.

Home Depot acquired SRS in 2024 as part of an aggressive push to court professional contractors who rely on wholesale distributors. It also just finalized the acquisition of an HVAC distributor. The rise in inflation has made it tougher for incoming Federal Reserve chief Kevin Warsh to cut interest rates quickly.

But we're hanging on to Home Depot because, at some point, the housing market has to wake up. 41 Fellow retailer TJX Companies is up next on Wednesday morning. The big difference here is that the economic environment actually plays into TJX's hands as a retailer known for offering quality merchandise at great prices.

Financial markets are tracking the development closely as investors assess the likely impact.