5 things next week that could determine if Wall Street's winning streak continues
Wall Street wrapped up another positive week, with the S & P 500 closing Friday above 5,000 for the first time ever. The Nasdaq finished less than 0.5% away from its November 2021 record-high close. It was another big week for Club company earnings, with Estee Lauder , Eli Lilly , GE Healthcare , DuPont , Linde , Ford , Disney and Wynn Resorts all reporting. Twenty-one of our 32 portfolio names have now delivered their results this quarter. Looking more broadly, according to FactSet, three-quarters of the 67% of S & P 500 companies that have issued their numbers reported upside earnings surprises, while just about two-thirds reported better-than-expected revenue. It was a pretty light week in terms of economic data releases, though we did get a favorable ISM Services number on Monday. Things will pick up next week with several closely watched macroeconomic updates, including two key government inflation reports. While no Club earnings are scheduled to report earnings in the week ahead, 61 companies in the S & P 500 will deliver their latest quarterly results. 1. Consumer inflation: The main event of the week will come on Tuesday when the January consumer price index (CPI) is released. Economists are looking for headline CPI to advance 2.9% year over year and core CPI, including food and energy prices, to gain 3.8%. While the core PCE (personal consumption expenditure) price index is the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation, CPI will provide valuable insight into what areas of the economy are seeing sticker price pressures. That, in turn, can help forecast whether there's any chance for a March interest rate cut. Right now, the market odds favor a Fed rate reduction in May or June. A cooler core CPI print, closer to the Fed's 2% target inflation rate, would likely be taken as a positive by the stock market. Really weak data could be less well received on the thought the Fed held rates high for too long. We, however, do not believe the latter to be the case. 2. Wholesale inflation: The January producer price index (PPI) is out on Friday. Economists are looking for a year-over-year headline PPI increase of 0.6%. The CPI carries more weight because it reflects the prices consumers pay. Price stability and maximizing employment are the two pillars of the Fed's dual mandate. However, PPI is important because it provides insight into input costs that companies pay. A greater-than-expected rise in input costs could lead to companies trying to protect profits by passing those higher costs through to consumers, which would be a negative in terms of getting the rate of inflation down. 3. Retail sales: January retail sales are on Thursday. While this report doesn't provide nearly as much insight into the rate of inflation as CPI, it is a gauge of consumer health. That's because nearly 70% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), or economic growth, is based on private consumption. If the economy is going to avoid a recession (and we think it will), we need to see consumer spending and shopping remain relatively resilient. Economists are expecting a 0.1% monthly decline, not too surprising given the comp for a January monthly reading is December, which is the last month of the holiday shopping season. 4. Other data: January's industrial production and capacity utilization report is also released on Thursday, and the January housing starts and building permits report is out on Friday. The former will provide insight into the state of manufacturing, which provides indirect insight into the health of consumer and business demand. The latter, however, is likely to garner more attention as an ongoing shortage of houses remains a key factor keeping prices high. Shelter costs are a real thorn in the Fed's side because they represent large, unavoidable cost for Americans. Anything that points to more housing supply coming online should be taken as a positive. 5. Earnings: We get a break from Club earnings next week. But things will pick back up for our portfolio names the following week. That's when Palo Alto Networks , Nvidia , Coterra Energ y and Bausch Health report. However, between now and then, there are tons of releases from non-portfolio companies to monitor for a better understanding of industry dynamics and the economy overall. As important as macroeconomic updates are, they're backward-looking and extremely high-level. Earnings releases, on the other, hand provide more up-to-date information. The reported numbers may be backward-looking but the information management teams share on their post-earnings conference calls are real-time and often provide insight as to what is currently happening on the ground. Monday, Feb. 12 Before the bell: monday.com (MNDY), Trimble (TRMB) After the bell: Arista Networks, (ANET), WM (WM), Cadence Design Systems, (CDNS), ZoomInfo Technologies (ZI), Avis Budget (CAR), Brighthouse Financial, (BHF), Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT), Vornado Realty Trust (VNO) Tuesday, Feb. 13 8:30 a.m. ET: Consumer price index Before the bell: Shopify (SHOP), Datadog, (DDOG), Coca-Cola (KO), Biogen (BIIB), Marriott International (MAR), Hasbro, (HAS), Restaurant Brands International (QSR), GlobalFoundries (GFS), Moody's (MCO), AutoNation (AN), Zoetis (ZTS), Molson Coors Beverage (TAP), Krispy Kreme, (DNUT), Incyte (INCY) After the bell: Airbnb, (ABNB), Upstart Holdings, (UPST), Robinhood (HOOD), Lyft (LYFT), MGM Resorts (MGM), Akamai Technologies, (AKAM), American International Group (AIG), Zillow (Z), Instacart (CART), DaVita (DVA) Topgolf Callaway Brands (MODG), GoDaddy (GDDY), New Gold (NGD), Denny's (DENN) Wednesday, Feb. 14 – Valentine's Day Before the bell: Barrick Gold (GOLD), CME Group (CME), Kraft Heinz (KHC), Sony (SONY), Generac (GNRC), Blackstone Mortgage Trust (BXMT), Martin Marietta Materials (MLM), Ryder System (RR), Sunoco, (SUN), LouisianaPacific (LPX), Owens Corning (OC) After the bell: Albemarle (ALB), Twilio (TWLO), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Energy Transfer (ET), Cisco Systems, (CSCO), AppLovin (APP), Fastly (FSLY), Upwork (UPWK), TripAdvisor, (TRIP) Thursday, Feb. 15 8:30 a.m. ET: Initial jobless claims 8:30 a.m. ET: Retail sales 9:15 a.m. ET: Industrial production & capacity utilization Before the bell: Crocs (CROX), Deere (DE), Penn Entertainment (PENN), Yeti (YETI), Wendy's (WEN), Oatly (OTLY), Shake Shack (SHAK), Southern Company (SO), Stellantis (STLA) After the bell: DraftKings (DKNG), Coinbase Global (COIN), Roku (ROKU), Trade Desk (TTD), Applied Materials (AMAT), DoorDash (DASH), Toast (TOST), Yelp (YELP), Ingersoll-Rand (IR), Texas Roadhouse (TXRH), Dropbox, (DBX) Friday, Feb. 16 Before the bell: Cinemark (CNK) 8:30 a.m. ET: Housing starts and building permits 8:30 a.m. ET: Producer price index (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

People walk by the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on Dec. 29, 2023. Spencer Platt | Getty Images