Wall Street has plenty to look forward to next week, including a busy economic calendar that will culminate in a key inflation reading. There is also a massive initial public offering on deck.
In economic indicators, investors will receive flash PMI readings from S&P, along with another estimate on U.S. Q4 GDP growth. Friday will see the release of the core personal consumption expenditures price index for February – a gauge that is widely seen as the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation. Fed chair Jerome Powell this week said any effects on inflation from U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs would be “transitory.”
The IPO market will be in focus as well, with American cloud computing firm CoreWeave (CRWV) expected to debut on the Nasdaq this week. The Nvidia (NVDA)-backed company plans to raise as much as $2.7B and is looking for a valuation reaching $26B. The IPO will also be a big test of the flagging artificial intelligence trade.
Tariffs will no doubt continue to garner attention, with traders looking out for any updates on upcoming U.S. reciprocal tariffs set to go into effect on April 2.
Earnings spotlight: Monday, March 24 – KB Homes (KBH), Oklo (OKLO), and Enerpac Tool Group (EPAC). See the full earnings calendar.
Earnings spotlight: Tuesday, March 25 – McCormick & Co. (MKC), GameStop (GME), Core & Main (CNM), Smithfield Foods (SFD), and Pony AI (PONY). See the full earnings calendar.
Earnings spotlight: Wednesday, March 26 – Cintas (CTAS), Paychex (PAYX), Dollar Tree (DLTR), Chewy (CHWY), and Jefferies Financial Group (JEF). See the full earnings calendar.
Earnings spotlight: Thursday, March 27 – Lululemon Athletica (LULU), TD SYNNEX (SNX), Braze (BRZE), AAR (AIR), and Winnebago Industries (WGO). See the full earnings calendar.
Clinical stage biotech is heavily out of favor, with Virtus LifeSci Biotech Clinical Trials ETF (BBC) down 17% YTD and the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) down 4% over the same timeframe.
Gene therapy companies have taken an even worse beating, with shares of Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT) falling over 20% on Tuesday, March 18, after news of a patient death on Elevidys due to acute liver injury. There have been signs of bottoming, such as Tang Capital offering to buy out “zombie biotechs” (trading below the value of their cash) and “tuck-in” acquisitions like Bristol Myers paying $5/share or $286M for its cell therapy partner 2seventy bio (TSVT).
From my end, in the much-maligned gene therapy space, I prefer REGENXBIO (RGNX) due to its multiple shots on goal in widespread ocular diseases, with heavyweight partner AbbVie (ABBV) highlighting RGX-314 as a key long-term value driver in its Q4 conference call. On the commercial side of things, I like ARS Pharma (SPRY) with its launch of nasal epinephrine spray Neffy off to a great start, as reimbursement ramps up and the lower 1mg dose was just approved (treat the 15% of patients not already addressed). Discover more analysis from Jonathan Faison with his SA Investing Group service – ROTY Biotech Community.
