The markets are marking time until they get their latest pound of flesh in the form of new catalysts.
They got a small catalyst this morning in an earnings miss from Home Depot (HD), although the home improvement retailer did reiterate its sales and profit outlook.
Attention will now turn to earnings results out of Target (TGT) and Walmart (WMT) this week, then a closely watched speech by Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday at Jackson Hole.
It may not feel this way, but the markets haven’t done much in the past week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC), and S&P 500 (^GSPC) are flat over this stretch.
Bring on that Powell speech.
With chatter that the government is nearing taking a 10% stake in Intel, I guess one shouldn't be shocked the bruised tech giant is hoping to gain some Street cred on its future product roadmap by tapping SoftBank and Masayoshi Son for $2 billion. Embattled Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan also gains a Trump friend in Masa.
Son said in a statement he sees Intel playing a “critical” role in US chip development.
It's still something to see this unfolding at Intel, which has billions in cash and is not in a financial death spiral. Given Masa's close ties to the Trump administration, I suspect the government stake announcement could be next.
A spokesperson for the Trump administration didn't return Yahoo Finance's requests for comment.
Per Yahoo Finance data, SoftBank’s $2 billion investment will give it about a 2% stake in Intel, enough to be its fifth-largest shareholder.
“We're not there yet,” Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Patrick Moorhead said on Opening Bid on whether Intel is near a financial crisis. “But the big ‘if' is how much more market share can AMD take from Intel?”
Speaking of uncertainty, Home Depot is out with an earnings miss. The company’s CFO downplayed the miss in a call I had with him this morning, pointing to sales strength late in the quarter and a reiterated outlook. Brutal results from Whirlpool (WHR) a few weeks ago also should have teed up this report for investors.
But the red flags in the report were as clear as a nail sticking up through a piece of plywood.
“Against the shortfall, we believe the shares could be under modest pressure with commentary on this morning’s call key for gaining confidence in the acceleration,” Stifel analyst Andrew Carter said.
Yahoo Finance checklist: Home Depot earnings day wins and losses
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Wins: US sales finished the quarter strong; outlook reiterated; margins held up despite tariffs
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Losses: An earnings miss is an earnings miss; interest rate cut needed to reawaken big remodeling projects
