US equity investors will focus on quarterly earnings, especially from equipment manufacturers for the semiconductor industry, as well as on inflation and jobs data this week.
* Quarterly earnings due this week include Cisco Systems (CSCO), Applied Materials (AMAT), Arista Networks (ANET), McDonald's (MCD), Coca-Cola (KO), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Duke Energy (DUK), and Marriott International (MAR).
* Investors will watch out for whether market leadership will continue to broaden, with continuing outperformance of energy, consumer defensive, and basic materials.
* On Friday last week, when the three mainstream indexes S&P 500, the Nasdaq Composite, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a strong rebound, daily returns from Lam Research (LRCX), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Nvidia (NVDA), Broadcom (AVGO), Applied Materials, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) were in the top 10 of stocks with a market capitalization of more than $100 billion.
* Investors will look out for whether this outperformance of semiconductor companies will continue this week, rewarding stocks that are the recipients of hundreds of billions of dollars of capital expenditures announced by big tech last week to beef up their respective artificial intelligence capabilities.
* January's delayed nonfarm payrolls and consumer price inflation data are on tap this week alongside retail sales and speeches from Federal Reserve Governors Christopher Waller and Stephen Miran. Both the Fed heavyweights voted for policy easing at the January meeting, when the central bank left interest rates unchanged.
* According to the CME FedWatch tool early Monday, the odds of the Fed extending its pause into March is 84%, versus 90% a week ago and 71% a month ago.
* Investors will keep an eye on US Treasury yields, which may feel the impact of higher Japanese government bond yields following a landslide victory of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party, and given her fiscally expansive agenda.
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