EDITOR'S NOTE

After a wild week of sharp reversals, stocks are likely to remain volatile in the week ahead as earnings roll out from dozens of companies, including Amazon and Alphabet. The week is also busy with economic releases, the most important of which is Friday’s January employment report.

All economic data will be even more important now that the Federal Reserve is on a path to raising interest rates. The Fed this past week added to the market’s big moves when it announced it could raise interest rates soon, and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled the central bank could raise them even faster than the four times the market has been expecting.

Both the Dow and S&P 500 ended the week with gains, despite big intraday swings in both directions. The Nasdaq was flat. Now investors will watch to see if the next batch of data has weakened due to the omicron variant, and whether the market views bad news for the economy as good news for the market.

 “As these begin to weaken and soften, will markets be relieved because it will relieve some of their concerns about the Fed tightening too aggressively?” asked one strategist.

THE WEEK AHEAD

MICHAEL SANTOLI'S MARKET COLUMN

ACTIVIST SPOTLIGHT

YOUR WEEKEND BRIEFING