<div id="readability-page-1"><div>   <ul> <li>Earnings slow down from this point forward, with only 611 global companies releasing results for Q1 this week</li> <li>All eyes will be on the retail earnings (WMT, TGT, HD, LOW, TJX, ROST) and Nvidia results</li> <li>Corporate uncertainty reaches its highest level in three quarters after a record low in Q1</li> <li>Potential earnings surprises this week: Hasbro (HAS), WalMart (WMT), Ulta Beauty (ULTA), Palo Alto Networks, Medtronic (MDT), Intuit (INTU) and Accenture (ACN)</li> </ul> <h3 id="h-the-breaking-point-april-s-energy-spike-erodes-purchasing-power">The Breaking Point? April’s Energy Spike Erodes Purchasing Power</h3> <p>Last week, macro data revealed a US consumer that continues to be pinched. April CPI rose 3.7% YoY, marking a nearly three-year high,<sup>1</sup> while PPI surged 6.0% YoY<sup>2</sup>, largely driven by an energy shock that has kept retail gasoline above $4.50 a gallon and crude prices stuck north of $100 a barrel.</p> <p>This sting at the pump directly eroded consumer spending power, as April Retail Sales slowed to 0.5%, below expectations for 0.6% and down from March’s 1.6%. This has raised fears among economists that the consumer has reached a breaking point and that stagflationary pressures are threatening a soft landing.<sup>3</sup></p>  <p>Because core inflation remains so sticky, the Federal Reserve is now widely expected to keep interest rates at current levels for longer. According to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool, there is now a greater probability of a rate hike at the December meeting than there is a rate cut.<sup>4</sup></p> <h3 id="h-next-week-s-watchlist-the-retail-earnings-parade-and-the-ai-infrastructure-play">Next Week’s Watchlist: The Retail Earnings Parade and the AI Infrastructure Play</h3> <p>Against this challenging macro backdrop, a stark divergence is expected as major retailers report earnings next week. Discounters are projected to perform well, with Walmart (WMT) expected to outpace Target (TGT) by gaining market share from high-income households trading down for groceries, while Target remains more vulnerable due to its heavier mix of discretionary goods. </p> <p>Meanwhile, home improvement giants Home Depot (HD) and Lowe’s (LOW) continue to battle a frozen housing market weighed down by high mortgage rates, leaving them reliant on spring seasonality and “pro” contractor sales to stabilize revenue. Conversely, off-price darlings TJX Companies (TJX) and Ross Stores (ROST) remain the bright spots of this high-inflation environment as shoppers hunt for bargains. </p> <p>The high-stakes AI infrastructure trade hits a critical juncture next week as market bellwether Nvidia (NVDA) reports earnings, just as rival chipmaker Cerebra hits Nasdaq last week in the one of the biggest tech IPOs since Uber in 2019. Ahead of Nvidia’s report, the bar is set exceptionally high following strong earnings from peers like Broadcom and Marvell, with investors hunting for a massive forward revenue guide now that Blackwell NVL72 supercomputers are in full-scale production. All eyes will be on data center revenue which hit a record of $62.3B last quarter and advanced 75% YoY driven by AI chip demand from hyperscalers. </p> <p>Looking to challenge this dominance, Cerebras made its public debut on Thursday, opening at $350 after selling shares at $185, well above the company’s expected range. That values the chipmaker at over $100B.<sup>5</sup> While Cerebras has built its reputation on dedicated, wafer-scale chips optimized for real-time AI inference, competition is heating up fast as Nvidia counters by folding Groq inference tech into its upcoming Rubin chips.</p> <p>Including the 11 S&amp;P 500 companies that reported last week, EPS growth stands at 27.7% for Q1 2026, unchanged from the prior week. This is on target to be the highest quarterly earnings growth rate for the index in a little over four years (Q4 2021 reported 32% growth). Revenue growth currently stands at 11.4%, up from 11.3% in the prior week. This could be the highest revenue growth rate since Q2 2022.<sup>6</sup></p>  <h3>Corporate Confidence Still Strong but Lower than Recent Quarters</h3> <p>The Late Earnings Report Index, our proprietary measure of CEO uncertainty, recorded its highest post-peak earnings season number in three quarters, but still below the long-run benchmark.</p> <p>The LERI tracks outlier earnings date changes among publicly traded companies with market capitalizations of $250M and higher. The LERI has a baseline reading of 100, and anything above that indicates that companies are feeling uncertain about their current and short-term prospects. A LERI reading under 100 suggests that companies feel they have a pretty good handle on the near-term.</p> <p>The official post-peak season LERI reading for Q2 stands at 73, below the baseline reading, but higher than the 53 posted in Q1 and 63 posted in Q4. This suggests companies are feeling slightly less certain about economic conditions than they were in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, perhaps spurred by the black swan event of the Iran War which began in late February. As of May 12, there were 91 late outliers and 113 early outliers.</p>  <h3>Potential Surprises Through the End of the Q1 Season​</h3> <p>Academic research shows that when a company confirms a quarterly earnings date that is later than when they have historically reported, it’s typically a sign that the company will share bad news on their upcoming call, while moving a release date earlier suggests the opposite.<sup>7</sup></p> <p>In the last few weeks of the first quarter earnings season we get results from a number of large companies on major indexes that have pushed their Q1 2026 earnings dates outside of their historical norms. Seven companies within the S&amp;P 500 confirmed outlier earnings dates through June 18. Hasbro (HAS), WalMart (WMT), Ulta Beauty (ULTA), Palo Alto Networks (PANW) and Medtronic (MDT) are later than usual and therefore have negative DateBreaks Factors.* Meanwhile Intuit (INTU) and Accenture (ACN) are reporting earlier than usual.</p> <h3>Q1 2026 Earnings Wave </h3> <p>With peak earnings season officially in the rearview mirror, fewer companies will release this report this week. In our universe of 11,000 global companies, only 611 will report Q1 2026 results. Thus far, 94% of companies have confirmed their earnings date and 82% have reported.</p> <h3>The Bottom Line</h3> <p>While the S&amp;P 500 is pacing toward its strongest earnings growth in four years, a rising LERI reading suggests that energy shocks and higher-for-longer rates may be denting corporate confidence. Upcoming retail earnings will reveal if the consumer has officially hit a breaking point, while Nvidia’s results and Cerebras’ explosive debut will test whether the AI boom can continue to carry a market increasingly threatened by stagflation. Robust fundamentals are currently holding the line, but the headwinds that could prevent a soft landing through 2026 are beginning to mount.</p> <p><strong><em>Sources:</em></strong></p> <p>1 CONSUMER PRICE INDEX – APRIL 2026, Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 12, 2026, https://www.bls.gov <br/>2 PRODUCER PRICE INDEXES – APRIL 2026, Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 13, 2026, https://www.bls.gov  <br/>3 Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, US Census Bureau, May 14, 2026, https://www.census.gov<br/>4 CME Group FedWatch, https://www.cmegroup.com<br/>5 “Cerebras Stock Jumps 68% After Blockbuster IPO. CEO Sees Bigger Things Ahead.” Barron’s, Adam Levine, May 14, 2026, https://www.barrons.com<br/>6 FactSet Earnings Insight, John Butters, May 15, 2026, https://advantage.factset.com<br/>7 Time Will Tell: Information in the Timing of Scheduled Earnings News, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Eric C. So, Travis L. Johnson, Dec, 2018, https://papers.ssrn.com</p>  </div></div>

沃爾瑪

塔吉特

英偉達期權收益策略 ETF - YieldMax

<p>第一季度財報季以混合結果結束，企業不確定性上升。沃爾瑪和塔吉特等主要零售商備受關注，預計在高通脹背景下，折扣零售商將表現強勁。英偉達即將發佈的財報備受期待，尤其是在同行業公司表現強勁之後。宏觀數據表明，由於能源成本上升，消費者的購買力正在下降，這引發了對滯脹的擔憂。晚期財報指數顯示首席執行官的不確定性增加，反映出對經濟的謹慎展望</p>

Q1 Earnings Recap: Retailers, Nvidia Close Out Season Marked by Robust Growth

- 全球 611 家公司本週公佈 Q1 財報，零售業表現備受關注。  
- 由於能源價格上漲，美國消費者支出能力受到壓制，CPI 達到近三年高點。  
- 企業信心雖有下降，但 S&P 500 盈利增長勢頭依舊強勁。

第一季度財報回顧：零售商和英偉達以顯著增長結束財報季