By Denny Jacob
Apple, Starbucks and General Motors are among the companies reporting earnings in the coming days, providing investors clues as to whether accelerated consumer spending will continue to bolster the U.S. economy.
Microsoft will reveal its results Tuesday, while Google parent Alphabet and e-commerce giant Amazon.com will report Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. The tech juggernauts are among the “Magnificent 7” companies expected to help drive S&P 500 earnings higher after the index reached a record.
Apple will report Thursday. Microsoft has dethroned the iPhone maker as the largest U.S. company by market value. Apple’s share price has recovered after a slow start to the year amid concerns about sluggish sales.
Boeing is set to report Wednesday after regulators put limits on the jet maker’s production of 737 MAX aircraft following a midair incident on an Alaska Airlines flight earlier this month that reignited air-safety concerns. The fallout from additional inspections and scrutiny is expected to put a damper on the company’s output this year.
Oil companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil will break out their results Friday. United Parcel Service reports Tuesday amid a global slowdown in shipping.
During the week, 106 S&P 500 companies — including six Dow Jones Industrial Average components — are scheduled to report, according to FactSet. So far, a quarter of the S&P 500 companies have reported this month, with fourth-quarter earnings on track to fall 1.4% from the year-prior period.
The expected results come amid greater optimism that the U.S. economy can avoid a recession as the Federal Reserve’s efforts appear to be tamping down inflation. Consumers have become more upbeat about the economy and helped it expand faster than expected in 2023.
Consumers’ appetite for spending could be better understood following results from coffee chain Starbucks on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Wheat Thins maker Mondelez International on Tuesday and consumer goods giant Clorox on Thursday will show shoppers’ willingness to stomach higher prices for household items.
Procter & Gamble last week said that while pricing is largely fueling sales growth, consumers stepped up the volume of items purchased across several categories. “Some consumers will look for value in private label, but an equal if not higher amount of consumers find better value in our propositions,” P&G Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten said on an earnings call Tuesday.
Mastercard reports on Wednesday, offering insights into whether Americans are paying down their credit-card debt.
Amazon’s results come as its bid to purchase Roomba maker iRobot faces a possible roadblock in the European Union.
JetBlue’s results offer a gauge on the state of travel spending as pandemic trends dissipate. The company also said it could scrap its attempted takeover of Spirit Airlines after antitrust regulators blocked the deal on grounds that consumers would see higher prices from the acquisition.
A flurry of insurers will report through the week. Investors will look to see if MetLife and Aflac on Wednesday and Cigna Group on Friday will follow insurance giant Travelers in reporting higher revenue and income in its latest quarter. The companies’ collective results could detail if consumers are becoming more willing to adopt personal insurance, among their other offerings.
Pfizer, Merck, and AbbVie are among the pharmaceutical companies set to issue their latest quarterly results, which come in the weeks since competitors including Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb have announced multibillion-dollar acquisitions.
General Motors reports Tuesday as it navigates challenges to produce electric vehicles and driverless cars.
Chip makers Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday and Qualcomm on Wednesday could give more details on how they are capitalizing on investors’ appetite for artificial-intelligence-driven products. Their results come after rival Intel offered a tepid revenue outlook for its first quarter as it weathers a rocky market for its programmable-chip business.
Write to Denny Jacob at denny.jacob@wsj.com