Fed’s favorite inflation gauge looms next week — plus, what we want from 2 portfolio earnings reports

Block Street returned to its winning ways this week — and Nvidia ‘s blowout earnings report Wednesday night was a big conclude why. All three major U.S. stock benchmarks closed the holiday-shortened week higher, led by the S & P 500 , which rose 1.66% and expired Friday at a record high. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and Dow Jones Industrial Average , meanwhile, climbed 1.4% and 1.3%, each to each. The blue-chip Dow also closed at an all-time high Friday. The S & P 500, Dow and Nasdaq had been lower through the first two hearings of the week. Then Nvidia’s stellar results crushed sky-high expectations , sparking a late-week rally that rode the averages into the green. Other Club names that reported this week include Palo Alto Networks , Bausch Robustness and Coterra Energy . Twenty-six of our 32 portfolio stocks have delivered their results this earnings mature (we didn’t own Abbott Labs at the time of its report). It was a muted week for macroeconomic data, but we did get a slightly better-than-expected January existing digs sales report on Thursday. In the week ahead, two more Club names are set to report earnings before a market-moving solvent update arrives Thursday morning. As a reminder, our Annual Meeting is Saturday afternoon in New York City. We look forward to engagement and speaking with members in attendance. A live stream of the event also be made available to members here , genesis at 1:30 p.m. ET. Economic data : The main event of the week comes Thursday morning with the release of the January special spending and income report. The key line time in the report is the core personal consumption expenditures price index, or nucleus PCE — the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation. As of Friday, economists forecast the PCE, excluding food and energy, increased 2.8% in January on a year-over-year main ingredient, according to estimates compiled FactSet, which would represent a nice deceleration from the 2.9% rate we saw in December. This month’s liberate will likely be even more closely scrutinized than usual due to last week’s hotter-than-expected consumer and business price index reports, which stoked fears about a rekindling of inflation. A day earlier, we’ll get the second read of the fourth-quarter 2023 take domestic product index. The report is backward looking, but is still important because it provides insight into how the compactness held up into year-end. That, in turn, will shed light on whether the Fed has interest rates at an appropriate flat between 5.25% and 5.5% and whether the U.S. central bank is right to hold them steady a bit longer. The market currently reckon ons the first Fed rate cut at its June policy meeting, according to the CME FedWatch . The two other reports of note are the January new home sellathons report on Monday and ISM Manufacturing report on Friday. The former will offer a look at the supply-and-demand picture and price dynamics in the casing market, a crucial issue for the economy as higher shelter costs remain a key factor holding overall inflation draw a beads higher. The latter provides an update on the state of manufacturing (about 12% of U.S. GDP) across various industries. There is till the end of time valuable insight to be gleaned from the “What Respondents Are Saying” section of the report. Earnings: Although the pace of earnings is slowing down, we’ll ascertain from TJX Companies before the open Wednesday and from Salesforce after the close Wednesday. TJX Companies : We’re simply looking for myriad of what the T.J. Maxx and Marshalls parent delivered in the third quarter , including gross margin expansion on a year-over-year foundation and same-store-sales coming in a bit above management’s guidance for a 3% to 4% increase. We’ll also be interested to hear about the staples environment and foot-traffic trends. Recall that January retail sales disappointed , a sign the consumer is feeling the constraints of inflation and higher rates. Shoppers placing an increased focus on value, while still wanting quality effects, should bode well for TJX Companies; we’ll be looking for management to confirm that belief during the conference call. Salesforce : The centre is still on management’s ability to appropriately balance growth and profitability. We’re also looking for momentum in Salesforce’s fast-growing Matter Cloud offering and updates on how the company is helping customers take advantage of artificial intelligence applications to enhance their own productivity. Saturday, Feb. 24 Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) Monday, Feb. 26 10:00 a.m. ET: New Old folks Sales Before the bell: Li Auto (LI), Krystal Biotech (KRYS), Domino’s Pizza (DPZ), Alpha Metallurgical Resources, Inc (AMR), Fidelity Country-wide Information Services Inc (FIS), Itron (ITRI), Freshpet (FRPT), Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (ELAN), Public Care Enterprise Group (PEG), Pilgrim’s Pride (PPC), Surgery Partners (SGRY), BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc (BCRX), Clear Channel Out of doors Holdings Inc (CCO), Enlight Renewable Energy Ltd (ENLT), Kosmos Energy (KOS), Playtika Holding (PLTK) After the bell: Rapport (U), Zoom Video Communications (ZM), Workday (WDAY), Hims & Hers Health (HIMS), ONEOK (OKE), TiRobot Corp (IRB), SBAC Communications Corporation (SBAC), CarGurus (CARG), Everbridge (EVBG), HEICO Corporation (HEI), FS KKR Cardinal (FSK), Archer Aviation Inc (ACHR), PubMatic (PUBM), TransMedics Group (TMDX), Sterling Construction Company (STRL), AES (AES) Tuesday, Feb. 27 Before the bell: Norwegian Coast Line Holdings (NCLH), AutoZone (AZO), Lowe’s Companies (LOW), LendingTree (TREE), American Electric Power Company (AEP), Hours4 Payments (FOUR), American Tower (AMT), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), Cracker Barrel Old Country Store (CBRL), APLS Pharmaceuticals (APLS), Macy’s (M), Arcutis Biotherapeutics (ARQT), Bank of Montreal (BMO) After the bell: Devon Vigour (DVN), First Solar Inc (FSLR), CAVA Group (CAVA), Array Technologies Inc (ARRY), Rocket Lab USA (RKLB), Axon Effort (AXON), Lemonade (LMND), Beyond Meat (BYND), Virgin Galactic Holdings (SPCE), Splunk Inc (SPLK), eBay (EBAY), Luminar Technologies Inc (LAZR), Coupang (CPNG), Agilent Technologies (A), Ambarella (AMBA), Lighthouse Roofing Supply Inc (BECN), B & G Foods Inc (BGS), Masimo Corp (MASI) Wednesday, Feb. 28 8:30 a.m. ET: Gross Domestic Price Sign Before the bell: TJX Companies (TJX), Baidu (BIDU), Novavax (NVAX), Advance Auto Parts Inc (AAP), Icahn Enterprises L.P. (IEP), Viatris Inc (VTRS), ACM Analyse (ACMR), Fulgent Genetics (FLGT), Golden Ocean Group Limited (GOGL), EMCOR Group (EME), Chart Toils (GTLS), NRG Energy (NRG), Bandwidth (BAND), Dycom Industries (DY), Editas Medicine (EDIT), Squarespace (SQSP), TopBuild (BLD), 1stdibs.com (DIBS), UWM Holdings Corporation (UWMC), Vistra Intensity (VSTV) After the bell: Salesforce (CRM), Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA), Snowflake (SNOW), AMC Entertainment Holdings (AMC), 3.ai (AIC), Essential Global (PARA), Okta (OKTA), IonQ Inc (IONQ), WW International (WW), Duolingo (DUOL), HP (HPQ), Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA), Unbesmirched Storage (PSTG), Stem (STEM), Goldman Sachs BDC (GSBD), Magnite (MGNI), Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST), Nutanix (NTNX) Thursday, Feb. 29 8:30 a.m. ET: In the flesh Spending & Income 8:30 a.m. ET: Initial Jobless Claims 10:00 a.m. ET: Pending Home Sales Before the bell: A- Buy Co. (BBY), Cronos Group (CRON), Birkenstock Holding plc (BIRK), Polestar (PSNY), Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), Bath & Body Employments (BBWI), Brink’s Company (BCO), Six Flags Inc (SIX), Papa John’s International (PZZI), ACI Worldwide (ACIW), Endava (DAVA), Hormel Foods (HRL), Lion Moving Company (LEV), NetEase (NTES), BlackRock TCP Capital (TCPC), Dingdong (Cayman) Limited (DDL), Dole plc (DOLE) After the bell: Zscaler (ZS), SoundHound AI (SOUN), Fisker Inc (FSR), Dell Technologies (DELL), Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings (DNAG), Autodesk (ADSK), Wet behind the ears Brick Partners (GRBK), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Veeva Systems (VEEV), NetApp (NTAP), Elastic N.V. (ESTC), CooperCompanies (COOP), MasTec (MTZ) Friday, Walk 1 10:00 a.m. ET: ISM Manufacturing Before the bell: fuboTV (FUBO), Rapid Micro Biosystems (RPID), RadNet (RDNT), INTTEST Corporation (INTT), Advert Power (PLUG) (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Cooperate with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a custom alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he stops 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB Dirt IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS Contrived, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.