As A Flurry Of Activity Hits This Week, All Eyes Will Still Be On Apple

After a weekend that was filled with news and analysis surrounding the impact of Hurricane Irma, we’re doing our best to turn our attention to what’s going to be the focus on the trading week ahead. There is something distinctly unnerving seeing equity markets relatively calm when mother nature is tossing a whopping 4 apocalyptic-like disasters our way — Harvey, Irma, the earthquake in Mexico, and now Hurricane Jose. But then if the South Korean Kospi doesn’t care about North Korea rattling its nuclear sword, then we suppose the S&P 500 might not be terribly fussed about nature tossing a little Armageddon our way.

Make no mistake, we too will be putting pencil to paper as we follow up on those companies that are likely to be hit by Irma, as well as those that are likely to see a pull forward in their business as rebuilding gets underway. If you missed those thoughts, as well as our larger recap of last week — including all the DC drama and what the latest economic data told us — you can find last Friday’s Weekly Wrap Up here. The title alone should tell you there was far more going on that the debt ceiling deal, Harvey fallout and getting ready for Irma.

Turning our focus to the coming days . . . this week we’ll be looking at:

The NFIB Small Business report, which saw exceedingly high levels of optimism after the election, but has faded since.

Wednesday and Thursday, we’ll get PPI and CPI numbers – unlikely to be anything astounding in these reports.

Friday will be a busy one with Retail Sales, Capacity Utilization, Industrial Production, Business Inventories and Michigan Confidence on top of Options Expiration, which always makes for a bit of funky market movement. Given the ongoing disruption to the retail landscape, we’ll once again parse through the report’s internal to see if department and electronic stores continue to be hit by the Connected Society headwind.

It’s Always Prudent to Keep at Least One Eye on Apple

Outside of the economic data, there are a number of items that will catch investor attention, but with relative certainty, we can safely say that most will be paying close attention to Apple’s (AAPL) “special live event” on Tuesday, September 12. Because Apple touches a number of our investment themes, we too will be watching the event to separate fact from internet rumor and innuendo over the company’s next iPhone, Apple TV and Apple Watch products, as well as any other surprises.

We previewed what we’re expecting on last week’s Cocktail Investing podcast, and at a minimum, it’s safe to say that for at least a few more quarters Apple’s fortunes will be largely tied to the iPhone. Late last week, it was reported that Apple is facing a month long production delay for the new iPhone. In our view this means one of the most critical things to watch as it concerns expectations for Apple’s current quarters is the ship date for the next iPhone.