Amazon, Apple earnings to provide look at consumer habits
Consumer habits will come to the fore again in next week's earnings deluge, when Amazon.com Inc., Shopify Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. are expected to talk about online spending trends and Apple Inc. may comment on the outlook for iPhone sales.
It follows a packed week that showed the US economy and consumer spending growing at a faster clip than expected, while corporate earnings delivered a few surprises of their own. Intel Corp. surged post-market after the chipmaker signaled its long-awaited comeback may be just around the corner; McDonald's Corp. and Mastercard Inc. also topped estimates. Thus far, US companies have registered the most earnings beats in almost two years, according to data tracked by Bloomberg Intelligence, and companies selling non-essential products and services have delivered more surprises than others.
In the semiconductor sector, Qualcomm Inc., Western Digital Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. are expected to report sales declines amid prevailing uncertainty. Results from pharmaceutical giants Pfizer Ltd. and Merck & Co. will be scrutinized for advances in oncology and human papillomavirus vaccines as the Covid-19 windfall subsides and sales of older medicines slow.
Monday: Western Digital (WDC US) may have approached a trough in demand for flash and hard-disk drives in the fiscal fourth quarter, paving the way toward a slow recovery, Bloomberg Intelligence said. Still, a fifth consecutive quarter of sales declines is likely, with a projected year-over-year drop of 44%. Investors will be keen for an update on the merger with Kioxia Holdings, but expect those questions to be deflected, BI said.
Tuesday: Evaporating uptake of Pfizer's (PFE US) Covid vaccine is the biggest reason for a projected
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