Last week said inflation cooled.

This week tells us what the consumer did while it was cooling.

Retail sales came in soft Friday. Michigan sentiment slipped. But six of the largest consumer facing companies on the tape have not yet reported. Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, Target, TJX, and Deere all cover the household from a different angle. Big ticket. Necessity. Discretionary trade down. Rural income.

The data calendar is thinner than any week since June. That gives the earnings the microphone. Two Fed events sit inside the week too. FOMC minutes on Wednesday and the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole conference beginning Thursday evening.

Last week left three scores on the board.

CPI matched consensus and PPI came in soft. September hold odds jumped to 68 percent while December hike odds moved to 73. The Iran blockade became kinetic after a US helicopter fired warning shots at a Panama flagged vessel. And Anthropic is targeting a two trillion dollar IPO as early as October.

The buildout ran through its cleanest earnings validation of the cycle. CoreWeave (CRWV) doubled revenue with margin. Super Micro (SMCI) guided 30 percent above consensus. AI infrastructure margin anxiety got its best answer yet.

THE HOMEBUILDER TAKES THE FIRST READ

NAHB Housing Market Index lands at 10:00 AM. This is the sentiment reading of the builders, not the buyers. It tracks whether foot traffic, single family sales, and six month expectations are firming or softening.

Empire State Manufacturing prints at 8:30. It is the first regional Fed reading of August and gives an early tell on what factories are seeing after two soft inflation prints.

TIC flows come at 4:00 PM. This tells you what foreign investors did with US bonds in June. Given the FIMA facility discussion from two weeks ago and Japan's Treasury holdings sitting at roughly $1.1 trillion, TIC flows are the closest thing to a live foreign demand reading.

Watch Signal

A rising NAHB index against soft existing home sales tells you builders see demand improving before the transaction data does. A falling index says the industry does not.

HOME DEPOT AND THE HOUSING DATA

Home Depot (HD) reports before the open. This is the single most important retail print of the week. Home Depot sits at the intersection of the housing cycle, the professional contractor economy, and the discretionary big ticket consumer. Its comp sales line is the cleanest read on whether the housing paralysis is starting to break.

Building permits and housing starts land at 8:30. Both cover July. If starts firm up against permits, builders are working through inventory. If permits fall harder, the pipeline is thinning.

ADP employment lands the same morning. It stacks against Friday's payroll count. Import and export prices also come at 8:30, followed by industrial production at 9:15 and pending home sales at 10:00.

Keysight Technologies (KEYS) and Analog Devices (ADI) both report on the semiconductor side. Analog Devices in particular gives one of the cleanest reads on automotive and industrial chip demand.

Earnings Signal

Home Depot guiding pro contractor volume higher tells you the housing market is thawing at the labor layer even if transactions have not caught up. That is the specific tell to watch.

TARGET, LOWE'S, AND THE FOMC MINUTES

Target (TGT) and Lowe's (LOW) report before the open. TJX Companies (TJX) joins them. Three consumer discretionary names on the same morning, each covering a different price point. Target for the middle income household. Lowe's for the home improvement DIY buyer. TJX for the trade down category.

TJX is the most interesting of the three. Off price retail wins when middle income households pull back from full price. Last week's Ross Stores (ROST) beat confirmed that pattern. TJX is the larger operator and its guide either extends the trade or resets it.

FOMC minutes land at 2:00 PM. Beth Hammack, Neel Kashkari, and Susan Collins all dissented at the July meeting in favor of a hike. The minutes tell you what the majority actually said inside the room.

MBA mortgage rate and EIA crude and gasoline stocks come earlier in the morning.

Watch Signal

The minutes establish the baseline for Jackson Hole. If the internal debate leaned harder toward the dissenters than the statement suggested, September hold odds compress before Warsh ever speaks. If the majority was firmly on hold, the burden shifts to Warsh to reopen the hike debate Friday.

WALMART AND THE JACKSON HOLE OPENING

Walmart (WMT) reports before the open. Walmart is the single biggest consumer read in the market. Its US comp sales, its grocery share, its Sam's Club performance, and its pricing commentary all read on the household's actual behavior.

Deere (DE) also reports. Deere is the rural income read. Agricultural equipment demand tracks farm income which tracks crop prices and commodity costs. Deere's guide tells you what farm country is doing.

Intuit (INTU) rounds out the morning as the small business and self employed read through its tax and QuickBooks businesses.

Initial jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index both land at 8:30. Philadelphia Fed complements Monday's Empire State reading.

The Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole symposium begins Thursday evening. Chair Warsh has stopped giving forward guidance. Whether he uses the Jackson Hole platform to signal anything is the biggest open question of the month.

Earnings Signal

Walmart's guide on Q3 grocery inflation is the specific input to watch. If Walmart is passing tariff costs through, the tariff invoice story from last week's Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT) read has reached the largest retailer in the country.

THE FLASH PMIS AND THE WARSH SPEECH

S&P Global Composite, Manufacturing, and Services Flash PMIs all print at 9:45. These are the first August activity readings. They land ahead of every ISM number and every regional Fed print for August.

Ubiquiti (UI) reports.

The Jackson Hole symposium runs through the day. Fed chair speeches have traditionally landed midmorning on the Friday of the conference. Warsh's speech, if he gives one, is the biggest single event of the week.

Watch Signal

Warsh has refused to submit dots and refused to signal directly. Jackson Hole is the platform where every Fed chair has used forward guidance at least once. If he breaks the silence, the front end reprices immediately. If he keeps it, the FOMC minutes from Wednesday become the closest thing to guidance the market gets before September.

The consumer names cover the tape but the buildout still runs underneath it.

Analog Devices, Keysight, and Ubiquiti carry the chip and networking thread. Home Depot and Deere carry the rate sensitive industrial thread.

The Iran blockade sits under all of it. WTI (CL) held $83 through Friday. Any escalation moves the tape faster than any earnings guide.

The Anthropic prospectus filing has not landed yet. When it does, it moves the entire AI sector.

Sector Read

The household carries the story this week. Three price points get tested across three days. Home Depot, Target, Lowe's, TJX, and Walmart together describe the entire household. Everything else is noise around those five names.

Last week the inflation data bought the Fed time. This week we find out what that time is worth.

Home Depot reads housing. Target reads the middle. TJX reads the trade down. Walmart reads the household. Deere reads rural America. By Thursday afternoon, the consumer will have reported from almost every angle.

Then Jackson Hole gets the last word.

The minutes Wednesday establish where the committee stood in July. Warsh Friday decides whether anything has changed. If retailers guide higher and Warsh sounds patient, the September hold gets stronger and the rally has room to extend. If retailers guide lower while Warsh keeps the hike case alive, the market gets the harder combination: a slowing consumer without monetary relief.

Last week said inflation cooled. This week tells us what the consumer did while it was cooling.

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