Monday, March 10, 2025

Pre-market futures are starting out lower again this morning, on an early session with no major economic data or earnings reports ahead of the opening bell. The Dow is falling -495 points at this hour, the S&P 500 is -81 points, and the Nasdaq is -330. The small-cap Russell 2000 is -28 points at this hour.

Friday’s session closed higher, as words from Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested he felt the U.S. economy was strong enough to withstand proposed tariffs on our trading partners without careening into recession. It also followed three of four previous trading days that closed harshly lower. Market indexes last week came in anywhere from -2.25% (Dow) to -3.25% (Nasdaq).

What to Expect from the Stock Market This Week

Tuesday brings a final monthly employment print with the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for January. But the main economic report of this week comes Wednesday morning, when Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers usher in a new Inflation Rate for February.

Year-over-year headline CPI, aka the “Inflation Rate,” is expected to tick down for the first time in five months, to +2.9% from +3.0% reported for January. This metric has been going in the wrong direction — climbing steadily — since September of last year. The Inflation Rate previously hit +3% back in June of last year. The core Inflation Rate, subtracting food and energy costs, is expected to reach +3.3% for the fifth time in the last eight months.

We know from incidental data that food costs are unlikely to shift downward month over month, so a down-tick in the Inflation Rate would necessarily have to be made up in energy prices, vehicle sales and shelter costs. We know that tariffs are likely to send prices higher across the board in the future, so a reprieve from higher inflation levels would be welcome this week.

The CPI’s sister-report, the Producer Price Index (PPI), comes out Thursday morning. The most recent print came in at +3.5% for January, matching December’s level for the highest rate of the previous year-plus. On Friday, preliminary Consumer Sentiment numbers hit the tape, expected to come in at +64.0% from the previous month’s +64.7%, which was already the lowest in the past 12 months.

Q4 earnings season is pretty well wrapped up by now, though we will hear from specialty retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods DKS, Dollar General DG and Ulta Beauty ULTA, along with tech companies on the late-reporting cycle, like Arm Holdings ARM and Adobe Systems ADBE.

After today's close, Oracle ORCL comes out with fiscal Q3 earnings. The Zacks Rank #4 (Sell)-rated company expects to bring +5% growth on earnings and +8% on revenues. The company had been enjoying a long string of quarterly earnings beats, though lately Oracle's performance has been spottier. Much will depend on how its businesses are situated in the AI and cloud-computing spaces.

Check out the updated Zacks Earnings Calendar here.

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