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The Week Ahead: Mag7 Earnings, Fed Decision, Jobs Number, PCE, GDP, Trade Deals and more.
Trading Calendar: Week of July 28th, 2025
RiskReversal Media
July 27, 2025
This Week
Last week ended with a solid +1.5% gain for the S&P 500 and another record high close. It continued the familiar pattern of this summer’s rally—steadily grinding higher as index volatility drifts lower. That calm backdrop has seen bursts of volatility beneath the surface, including a growing dose of meme-stock-style action. But this latest leg of the rally faces its biggest test yet, with a jam-packed week ahead: Mag7 earnings, a Fed rate decision, GDP, PCE, the Jobs Number, and (already) a fresh wave of trade headlines.
More on the week to come, but let’s first check in on weekend news, including some breaking trade deal news from today:
Tariffs live updates: EU agreement announced. China truce extension expected. (Yahoo Finance)
President Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the US and EU had agreed to the framework of a trade deal after negotiations in Scotland on Sunday. Trump called it “the biggest deal ever,” while von der Leyen said that the EU had agreed to 15% tariffs across the board.
The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper, reported on Sunday that "Beijing and Washington are expected to extend their tariff truce by another three months at trade talks in Stockholm beginning on Monday, according to sources close to the matter on both sides."
On Friday, Trump said that letters dictating tariff rates for over 200 countries would go out soon while his administration works to clinch deals with larger trade partners, including the EU, India, and Canada. Trump said the US hasn't had a "lot of luck" with Canada and suggested he may impose threatened 35% levies on goods not covered by the US-Canada-Mexico trade agreement.
The Fed Hasn’t Seen a Split Like This in 30 Years (Barron’s)
It has been more than three decades since two Federal Reserve Board governors dissented on an interest-rate decision at the same Fed policy meeting. That kind of internal division is rare, and markets pay attention to it. The Federal Reserve hasn’t seen two governors break ranks with the board since 1993. It could happen at this month’s FOMC meeting.
Return of Meme Stock Mania Has Traders on Alert for Market Froth (Bloomberg)
The reemergence of meme stock mania last week has professional investors facing a quandary: ride the excitement of retail traders or take it as the latest warning sign that the frothy markets are due for a pullback. The speculative stocks caught up in the frenzy this week, like Opendoor Technologies Inc. and Kohl’s Corp., gave up some of their gains as the week went on, but most are still trading at their highest levels in months. The broader S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq 100 Index are doing even better, sitting at all-time highs after charging back from the early April selloff set off by President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements. There are indicators that investors are abandoning restraint and betting on further gains. The amount that investors are borrowing to buy stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, known as margin debt, has exceeded the tech-bubble highs to reach a new record, according to data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. But signs of fatigue are creeping in. The latest meme stock rally seemed to lose steam after just a few days, and Bitcoin, one of the most visible symbols of the speculative fever, has recently fallen back from its record highs. Some Wall Street trading desks have been urging clients to scoop up discounted protection against possible losses. The current run has stretched valuations, with the S&P 500 trading at nearly 23 times forward earnings, well above the ten-year average of around 18, signaling that stocks have gotten significantly more expensive.
Investors Are Flocking to the Stock Market’s Discount Rack (WSJ)
Pricey tech heavyweights send some individuals in search of bargains. Wall Street’s bargain-hunters are back. As recently as April, Chase Goodman plowed his extra savings into funds linked to stock-market indexes dominated by the world’s biggest technology companies. Lately though, the Detroit-based 29-year-old analyst at an auto company is reading corporate filings and tracking where the shares of companies trade relative to their book value.
The New Chips Designed to Solve AI’s Energy Problem (WSJ)
To that end, Wee’s team at Cloudflare is testing a radical new kind of microchip, from a startup founded in 2023, called Positron, which has just announced a fresh round of $51.6 million in investment. These chips have the potential to be much more energy efficient than ones from industry leader Nvidia at the all-important task of inference, which is the process by which AI responses are generated from user prompts. While Nvidia chips will continue to be used to train AI for the foreseeable future, more efficient inference could collectively save companies tens of billions of dollars, and a commensurate amount of energy. There are at least a dozen chip startups all battling to sell cloud-computing providers the custom-built inference chips of the future. Then there are the well-funded, multiyear efforts by Google, Amazon and Microsoft to build inference-focused chips to power their own internal AI tools, and to sell to others through their cloud services. The intensity of these efforts, and the scale of the cumulative investment in them, show just how desperate every tech giant—along with many startups—is to provide AI to consumers and businesses without paying the “Nvidia tax.” That’s Nvidia’s approximately 60% gross margin, the price of buying the company’s hardware.
Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia's top product (Reuters)
China's Huawei Technologies showed off an AI computing system on Saturday that one industry expert has said rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to capture market share in the country's growing artificial intelligence sector. The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth. The system has drawn close attention from the global AI community since Huawei first announced it in April. Industry analysts view it as a direct competitor to Nvidia's, GB200 NVL72, the U.S. chipmaker's most advanced system-level product currently available in the market.
As mentioned earlier, it’s a jam-packed week of economic catalysts, trade war news, and earnings—but you wouldn’t know it from current volatility pricing. Last week’s grind higher, along with the market’s quick recovery from any negative headlines, has put short-dated volatility firmly in summer mode. The expected move for the S&P 500 this week is just 1.3%, up slightly from 1.1% last week, but overall, there’s little sign of fear in the market right now. With today’s trade news, expect a bid to start the week as well:
This Week’s Expected Moves:
SPX/SPY: 1.3% (6300-6475)
QQQ: 1.6%
IWM: 2.6%
TLT: 1.6%
USO: 2.7%
A few quick takeaways from the above: Asset volatility remains at multi-month lows across the board—including oil and Treasuries—which continues to help suppress equity volatility. The market seems comfortable assuming it won’t have to react to big swings in yields, oil, or the dollar, even with the Fed on deck this week.
One thing to flag: volatility in the IWM (small caps) is starting to tick higher, especially relative to SPX, SPY, and QQQ. That’s a subtle but important sign of the froth we’ve been seeing under the surface. The move likely reflects market pricing for meme-stock-style swings in small caps—both up and down. Normally, IWM implied volatility runs just slightly above QQQ, but the divergence this week is more pronounced. Keep an eye out in case similar starts happening in QQQ (stocks up, vol up) as it’s a clear sign of some investor euphoria.
Here’s this week’s calendar that may put all those vol assumptions to the test:
Economic Calendar:
Tuesday
10am - JOLTS Job Openings
Wednesday
8:15am - ADP Employment
8:30am - GDP
2pm - FOMC Rate Decision
2:30pm - Powell Presser
Thursday
8:30am - PCE
9:45am - Chicago PMI
Friday
8:30am - NFP Jobs Number
10am - ISM Manufacturing
10am - Consumer Sentiment
While the spotlight this week will be on the megacaps—Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta—there’s something for everyone on the earnings front. Reports from Boeing and UnitedHealth, as well as high-beta names like Robinhood, Coinbase, MicroStrategy, and Riot, are all on deck. Expect big swings across a wide range of names each day. As we noted last week, some of the sharpest post-earnings moves have actually been to the downside, as overly bullish sentiment pushed stocks higher into the reports:
Earnings (with expected moves):
Tuesday
Pre-market: BA 4.4%, UNH 7.4%, UPS 6.3%, SOFI 9%, PYPL 6.7%, SPOT 9%, MRK 4.8%, PG 3.1%
After-hours: SBUX 6.4%, V 3.3%, BKNG 5%, MARA 8.7%
Wednesday
Pre-market: ETSY 10.5%
After-hours: META 5.7%, MSFT 3.9%, QCOM 5.8%, CVNA 12.5%, F 6.4%, HOOD 8.7%
Thursday
Pre-market: RBLX 12%, ABBV 4%
After-hours: AAPL 3.9%, AMZN 5%, MSTR 5.2%, COIN 7.3%, RDDT 11.9%, ROKU 10.8%, RIOT 9%
Friday
Pre-market: XOM 2.6%, CVX 2.5%
It’s also worth noting that both the earnings and economic calendars are heavily back-loaded this week. Trade headlines over the weekend may help markets open on a strong note Monday, potentially keeping volatility suppressed early on. But that calm likely won’t last. By midweek, the market will need to start pricing in the potential for large overnight moves tied to earnings and data, especially with Friday’s jobs number on deck.
Bottom line: if you’re looking to position with lower volatility, the early part of the week is your best window—things could get a bit more chaotic starting Wednesday.
