Here are 3 big things to watch in the stock market this coming week
Club name FedEx will soon step into the earnings spotlight after a holiday-shortened week of trading brought good news on the Iran war and oil prices. Also on our radar in the week ahead is May inflation data โ though caveats are needed, as we’ll explain later โ and earnings from memory chipmaker Micron , one of the most consequential companies in the artificial intelligence trade. 1. FedEx earnings: On Tuesday evening, FedEx reports fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter results, which cover the March-to-May period. It will be a complex print for a couple of reasons. For starters, the reported results will cover both FedEx and the newly spun-out FedEx Freight, which started trading on its own on June 1. As is usually the case with spin-offs, FedEx will begin reporting restated financials that reflect the company’s current makeup โ a logistics solutions and parcel delivery firm. Complicating matters, FedEx is also shifting to a traditional fiscal year ending in December, ditching its current June-to-May calendar. This change, announced in January 2025 , will bring FedEx in line with rival UPS and other transportation industry players. While a reasonable decision, the combination of the calendar switch and the spin-off will make it difficult to compare FedEx’s guidance against Wall Street’s estimates. FedEx may provide an outlook for both the June-to-September period โ four months, not the usual three in a quarter โ and the seven-month transition window from June to December. Plus, the management team, led by CEO Raj Subramaniam, is known to be conservative. Got all that? The main point is that there is a ton of moving parts around FedEx’s earnings Tuesday night, so the market may need some time to digest it all. The stock’s first move may not be the right move. For us, we’ll focus on the reported numbers โ particularly profitability metrics โ since they’ll be easier to interpret than the guide (at least initially). Another big focus is the conference call commentary from Subramaniam on where the streamlined FedEx is headed. Any update on resuming stock buybacks will be notable, too. The crux of our thesis is that FedEx’s self-help initiatives to optimize its delivery network and prioritize more profitable deliveries, such as specialized health-care parcels, will result in impressive earnings and free cash flow growth. Analysts at Deutsche Bank summed it up nicely in a June 11 note to clients. “While we admit the task of calendarizing earnings while simultaneously adjusting out a large freight segment is no doubt daunting, we don’t think this should stand in the way of our appreciation that tailwinds to the core business remain intact/are accelerating,” the analysts wrote. FedEx is expected to report revenues of $24.04 billion and earnings per share of $5.96, according to LSEG. Now, moving to FedEx Freight , which is the largest less-than-truckload (LTL) provider in North America. LTL services consolidate shipments from multiple customers onto a single trailer โ think of these shipments as too large for standard parcel delivery (say, over 150 pounds or a few pallets of product) but not large enough for the customer to require an entire truck. We’ll hear from FedEx Freight executives, led by CEO John Smith, on a Thursday night investor day. The numbers for its fourth quarter will already be out thanks to its parent company’s Tuesday night report. So come Thursday, we will get color on the Q4 results and hopefully receive an update on what to expect for the rest of the year. At its April investor day, FedEx Freight projected modest top-line growth in the June-to-December transition period and sequential pressure on adjusted operating margin due to spin-off-related costs such as technology investment. With our excitement around what FedEx Freight can do now that it’s operating as a standalone firm, we added to our position on Wednesday. The consensus for FedEx Freight is $2.26 billion in sales and EPS of $1.53, according to LSEG. 2. Inflation update: The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge โ the personal consumption expenditures price index โ is out Thursday morning. The release comes after Kevin Warsh sounded more hawkish on monetary policy than some investors and Fed watchers may have expected during his first press conference as Fed Chairman last week. The PCE price index typically doesn’t capture as much attention as the consumer price index. While they are similar, the Fed uses the PCE index for its 2% inflation target because it is “constructed in a way that accounts for how Americans are spending their money at a given time and more quickly adapts to changes in spending patterns,” according to its website . This week’s PCE data is for May. Earlier in June, the CPI for May came in at a three-year high of 4.2% , with a major driver being the Iran war-related rise in energy prices. Accordingly, we need to take the May PCE with a grain of salt, given optimism about an end to the Middle East conflict and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz , which caused oil prices to plummet last week. U.S. oil benchmark WTI crude is settled at roughly $76 a barrel on Thursday, a steep drop from the upper $90s and low $100s seen throughout May. At its lows of the session on Thursday, WTI hit a level not seen since March 4, just a few days into the start of the Iran war. If these prices hold, and possibly go even lower , this should provide a huge relief on the inflation front in the coming months โ and that could mean current projections for a potential Fed rate hike later this year prove misplaced. Sure, the PCE data may help us understand price pressures in other areas of the economy (say, housing or healthcare services), but oil has been driving the inflation bus the past few months. Right now, the bus is en route to a much friendlier place than it was just a few weeks ago. The key to keeping it this way is progress toward a durable resolution in the Middle East. Over the weekend, Iran claimed it had closed the Strait of Hormuz due, in part, to continued Israeli military operations in Lebanon. The U.S. denied those claims, as Vice President JD Vance was in Switzerland for peace talks. 3. Micron earnings: The Idaho-based company is experiencing a windfall from soaring prices for memory chips used in data center servers. That explains why shares are up over 800% over the past 12 months and almost 300% in 2026 alone. While we do not own Micron’s stock, its results and commentary, out Wednesday, have implications for all of our chipmakers โ Nvidia , Broadcom , and Intel โ and the companies spending billions of dollars building data centers; for us, that’s Microsoft , Meta Platforms , Amazon , and Alphabet . When Meta raised its full-year capital expenditure guidance in April by 8% to $135 billion, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the increase was primarily due to higher component prices, particularly for memory. Microsoft also said its calendar 2026 capex guidance of $190 billion included a $25 billion impact from higher component pricing. Micron is one of three companies that make the kind of memory chips used in AI servers known as high-bandwidth memory (HBM); South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung are the other two. In other words, the additional money that our companies are shelling out to cover higher memory costs ultimately pads these three companies’ bottom lines. Demand for HBM is far outstripping available supply, even as manufacturers allocate more of their capacity to this AI memory and away from simpler kinds used in consumer electronics (squeezing smartphone and PC makers like Apple in the process ). Our focus with Micron will be on the company’s pricing commentary, updates on the timelines for new manufacturing capacity, and whether it has inked any more multiyear supply agreements with customers. In March, Micron said it signed its first five-year supply agreement, though details were light. These long-term contracts are becoming more common i n the memory-and-storage industry, which has historically been prone to boom-and-bust cycles. The chipmakers are looking to add visibility and predictability to their businesses, while the customers are doing what they can to ensure they have adequate supply, even if they have to pay up to secure it. Analysts expect Micron to report earnings per share of $20.47 on revenues of $35.42 billion. Week ahead Monday, June 22 No earnings reports of note Tuesday, June 23 S & P Global PMI Manufacturing and Services (preliminary) at 9:45 a.m. ET Before the bell: Carnival Corp., Sunbelt Rentals (SUNB) After the bell: FedEx (FDX) , Worthington Industries (WOR), KB Home (KBH) Wednesday, June 24 New home sales at 10 a.m. ET Before the bell: Paychex (PAYX) After the bell: Micron (MU), Trip.com (TCOM), MillerKnoll (MLKN), Worthington Steel (WS) Thursday, June 25 PCE price index at 8:30 a.m. ET Before the bell: Commercial Metals Co (CMC), Acuity Brands (AYI), McCormick & Co (MKC), TD Synnex (SNX), Darden Restaurants (DRI), Winnebago (WGO) After the bell: FedEx Freight (FDXF) Friday, June 26 Whole inventories at 8:30 a.m. ET University of Michigan consumer sentiment (final) at 10 a.m. ET No earnings reports of note (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) 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