Alex Eule

Calm Before the Storm. Traders took a bit of a breather Friday, with the major indexes all rising on a low volume of trading.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.4% on the day, narrowing its weekly decline to 1.4%. It snapped a three-week winning streak, as did the Nasdaq Composite, with a weekly decline of 2.1.%

Plenty of vacations are likely to get disrupted next week, which features a blockbuster earnings report from Nvidia and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh's speech from the central bank's annual Jackson Hole Symposium.

The remarks are hotly anticipated. "Warsh, who succeeded Jerome Powell in May, has said that he wants to use the speech to frame the 'big questions' facing the Fed-concerns around inflation targets, productivity, demographic changes, and global economic shocks," my colleague Megan Leonhardt reports.

Megan quotes Patrick Harker, a former Philadelphia Fed president, on the stubborn challenge facing Warsh:

Warsh is going to have to address the elephant in the room, which is inflation. He's got to actually say more than 'we're in the fight.' That's not going to fly. If that's going to be his approach, it's going to really be a disappointment to the markets.

The world's largest company will report its earnings roughly 48 hours before Warsh takes the podium in Wyoming. Nvidia's graphics processing units, or GPUs, have been the key ingredient in the AI boom. Four years ago, on the eve of ChatGPT's debut, Nvidia reported second quarter revenue of $6.7 billion. Next week, analysts forecast second-quarter revenue of $92.o billion. Over that time, shares are up 1,149% versus an 85% rise for the S&P 500.

With a market cap of $5.2 trillion, Nvidia now has a harder time impressing. In recent quarters, the share gains have slowed, even as the revenue continues to climb.

Watch our TV show on Fox Business Saturday and Sunday at 10:30 a.m. ET. This week, Benjamin Narison, founder and general partner at Tenacity Venture Capital, on the next opportunities in startups.

Barron's newsletter portfolio is growing. Barron's Global Signals is a premium weekly newsletter devoted to helping investors navigate volatility with confidence. Each week we connect how global risk, policy shifts and international developments impact your portfolio. You can subscribe to Barron's Global Signals here.

The Hot Stock: Robinhood Markets +13.7% The Biggest Loser: Marvell Technology -5.6%

Best Sector: Materials +2.2% Worst Sector: Utilities -2.3%

This Weekend's Magazine

The Calendar

Nvidia earnings and a key speech from new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will highlight August's final week of trading, unofficially closing out a summer that has sent stocks soaring.

The world's artificial intelligence leader, and its biggest tech stock by market value, will publish its second-quarter earnings after the close on Wednesday. Analysts are expecting bottom-line earnings of $2.08 a share, nearly double last year's tally, and a staggering $92.06 billion in overall revenue.

More importantly, will be the company's near-term outlook for sales and profit growth, with investors looking for full-year revenue in the region of $400 billion, nearly double its $215 billion tally from 2025.

A handful of key software and tech stocks will also report second quarter profits this week, with Salesforce, CrowdStrike, and Marvell Technology on the docket.

Tech earnings have driven the lion's share of overall profit growth this quarter, with the market's three major sectors-information technology, communications services, and consumer discretionary-contributing around half of the benchmark's expected overall tally of $740 billion, according to LSEG estimates.

Beyond the earnings story, however, lurks a potentially more definitive event: Warsh's first keynote address at the Jackson Hole central banking symposium in Wyoming on Friday. Investors and economists will closely observe any remarks from Warsh, who has eschewed the idea of offering markets any insight into the Fed's thinking on interest-rate changes-beyond a commitment to aggressively fight inflation.

The final throes of August will also include data on second-quarter gross domestic product, as well as a key reading of personal consumption expenditures inflation, expected the day before Warsh's speech.

Key updates from the Conference Board's reading of consumer sentiment, as well as the University of Michigan's reading of inflation and spending outlooks, are due on Tuesday and Friday, respectively.

-Martin Baccardax

What We're Reading Today

Layoffs at JPMorgan Hit Highest Level Since 2015

Bessent's Surprise Interventions Are Leaving Bond Investors Bracing for More Change

The Fall and Redemption of Bill Miller

Can mRNA Cure Cancer? Inside the Pipeline Risks for Biotech's Biggest Players

SpaceX Stock Gets Another Sell Rating. Why It Could Fall 25%.

And this weekend's Barron's cover story: Boeing and 9 More Stocks for Manufacturing's Revival, From Our Roundtable Pros

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