At a Glance

The August jobs report arrives Friday and could shape whether the Federal Reserve raises rates in September.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech pushed market-implied odds of a September rate hike to 60%.

Dell, Broadcom, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise report quarterly results this week.

Tim Cook officially hands the Apple CEO role to John Ternus this week.

Lululemon, Five Below, and Victoria's Secret are among the consumer companies reporting earnings.

The week ahead is packed with market-moving events, spanning a key jobs report, major corporate earnings, and a leadership transition at Apple. Stocks enter the week roughly 1% below record highs. Markets got a lift last week from Nvidia's strong quarterly results and an increase in oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, now at around two-thirds of pre-war levels according to Goldman Sachs.

Fed in Focus

The Federal Reserve sits at the center of investor attention. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh spoke at Jackson Hole on Friday and, while he avoided giving direct forward guidance, markets read his comments as hawkish. Jackson Hole, the Fed's annual economic policy symposium in Wyoming, has historically been a venue where chairs signal shifts in policy thinking, which is one reason the speech moved markets.

The CME FedWatch tool showed the probability of a September rate hike jumping to 60% after Warsh's speech, up from 35% the day before. Warsh acknowledged that inflation remains too high and that current monetary policy is not particularly restrictive.

Odds of a Fed rate hike in 2026 jumped to 64% after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said the Fed has "work to do" if inflation doesn't move toward 2% fast enough. pic.twitter.com/YwcywqcAxH — Wall St Engine (@wallstengine) August 28, 2026

BlackRock's Rick Rieder noted the speech "erred on the hawkish side" but said a September hike is not guaranteed, with more inflation and employment data still to come before the Fed meets. Rate expectations matter well beyond the Fed's decision itself: shifts in the perceived rate path feed directly into Treasury yields and the pricing of equities, which is why the jobs report and the speech are being watched together.

Jobs Report Takes Center Stage

The August Employment Situation Report lands Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. In July, the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs, catching economists off guard. The unemployment rate came in at 4.1%, better than expected, but labor force participation is near a five-year low. Because the Fed has explicitly tied its next moves to incoming inflation and employment data, Friday's release is effectively the last major labor datapoint before the September meeting, giving it outsized weight for rate expectations.

ING economist James Knightley expects a modest recovery of around 65,000 jobs in August. He pointed to tariff-related caution and higher borrowing costs as factors keeping hiring subdued for the rest of the year.

The labor participation rate has fallen partly because immigration has slowed and some workers may have given up looking for jobs or chosen to retire early.

Earnings From Tech to Consumer

On the tech side, Dell reports Tuesday. Last quarter, Dell's AI-optimized server sales surged 750% year over year, and the company raised its outlook. Broadcom and Hewlett Packard Enterprise both report Wednesday, with strong AI data center demand expected to be a theme. These reports arrive as investors continue to weigh how much of the market's gains are concentrated in AI-linked names, after Nvidia's results last week gave the broader market a lift.

#earnings for the week of August 31, 2026 $AVGO $CRDO $CIEN $DELL $PANW $NIO $HPE $SNOW $PATH $AMBA $WLY $SAIC $MDB $NTAP $FCEL $SSL $DOCU $FIVE $RZLV $ZS $LULU $IOT $ASAN $MMED $MDT $CANG $CHPT $BBCP $SWBI $BLRX $AGX $PL $GTLB $PHR $YEXT $CRM $PVH $BF.B … pic.twitter.com/gdYAAyadpX — Earnings Whispers (@eWhispers) August 28, 2026

Palo Alto Networks also reports Tuesday after the bell. The cybersecurity company beat expectations last quarter and issued an upbeat forecast.

On the consumer side, Five Below reports Wednesday. The discount retailer topped expectations this spring as shoppers across income levels turned to lower-priced stores. Lululemon reports Thursday, though its shares took a hit in June when the company lowered its forecast. New CEO Heidi O'Neill, a former Nike executive, takes over on September 8. Consumer results this week will offer a read on whether trade-down behavior among shoppers persists across income levels.

Apple Passes the Torch

Tim Cook officially hands the CEO role to John Ternus this week. Cook grew Apple's market cap from $350 billion to between $4 trillion and $5 trillion during his tenure. Ternus, previously Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, now takes the helm. It is only the third CEO transition in Apple's history, following Steve Jobs's return in 1997 and Cook's own appointment in 2011, making it a notable moment for one of the market's largest weights.

The Federal Reserve also releases its Beige Book on Wednesday, and Tesla holds an event in Austin, Texas on Thursday, where it is expected to share more details about its Cybercab autonomous taxi.

Source: CoinCentral