Investors should “steel” themselves for a potentially challenging week ahead, with a number of key reports that could serve as indicators for the broader economy, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday.
Key numbers on retail sales come out Tuesday alongside earnings from Home Depot, followed by a Wednesday morning earnings report from Target.
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Those numbers will be helpful in parsing the state of the economy, Cramer said, especially since Tuesday’s retail data might show “some real cracks in consumer spending.”
Earnings data comes in Wednesday from networking powerhouse Cisco and video-game maker Take-Two Interactive. Cramer thinks that Take Two “might be due for a change of fortune,” given how unhappy CEO Strauss Zelnick was with his prior-quarter performance.
On Thursday reports come in from retail and e-commerce juggernauts Walmart and Alibaba. Cramer thinks Walmart’s subscription service, Walmart+, has been “gaining momentum.”
On Friday, Cramer said that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s appearance on a monetary policy panel could give investors some insight into Fed thinking and potentially the banking crisis that’s unfolded over the last few weeks.
The debt crisis is looming, and until lawmakers find a solution, Cramer said investors should move with caution.
