• Fed meeting, FOMC dot-plot, Powell news conference will be in focus this week.
• Nvidia’s GTC conference presents a promising opportunity for the company to showcase its cutting-edge technology and growth prospects, making it a stock to consider buying.
• Nike’s anticipated earnings report, along with its ongoing challenges, might make it a stock to sell.
• Looking for actionable trade ideas to navigate the current market volatility? Subscribe here to unlock access to InvestingPro’s AI-selected stock winners.
U.S. stocks rallied on Friday, rebounding from steep losses seen over the week, as President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war fueled recession fears and battered risk sentiment.
Even with Friday’s bounce, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite notched their fourth straight weekly losses. The S&P 500 slumped 2.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 2.4%. The Dow fell 3.1% for its worst week in two years.
Source: Investing.com
The blockbuster week ahead is expected to be an eventful one filled with several market-moving events, including the Federal Reserve’s latest monetary policy meeting.
The U.S. central bank is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, but Fed Chair Jerome Powell could offer hints about when rate cuts might start when he speaks in the post-meeting press conference.
Along with its policy update, the Fed will release new dot-plot quarterly projections for interest rates, unemployment and inflation. Markets currently expect the Fed to wait until June to cut rates again, as per the Investing.com Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
Source: Investing.com
Meanwhile, on the economic calendar, most important will be Monday’s U.S. retail sales report, which will shed further light on the health of the economy.
Elsewhere, on the earnings docket, there are just a handful of corporate results due, including Nike (NYSE:NKE), FedEx (NYSE:FDX), Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU), Lennar (NYSE:LEN), General Mills (NYSE:GIS), and Carnival (NYSE:CCL) as Wall Street’s reporting season draws to a close. In addition, a handful of China-based stocks are also on the agenda, including PDD Holdings (NASDAQ:PDD), Tencent (OTC:TCEHY), XPeng (NYSE:XPEV), and Nio (NYSE:NIO).
Regardless of which direction the market goes, below I highlight one stock likely to be in demand and another which could see fresh downside. Remember though, my timeframe is just for the week ahead, Monday, March 17 – Friday, March 21.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is set to host its highly anticipated GPU Technology Conference (GTC), at which it is likely to show off its latest advancements in generative AI, accelerated computing, large language models, robotics, and more.
