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Let's take a look now, add some stocks making news in the week ahead. I'm Nathan Hager, joined by Bailey Lipschultz, senior equities reporter for Bloomberg News. And Bailey, it looks like Wednesday is going to be a particularly busy day on the earnings. We got several big names reporting in the middle of the week. So let's start with Cisco. The tech earnings aren't quite done with us yet.
Huh Now, not done with us yet, and we're pivoting to some of those I don't know, actual companies that make real tangible goods that you can hold, and Cisco's going to be a big one given the stocks up more than thirty percent over the last year and a lot of expectations are a big focus on can they maintain the momentum that we've been seeing given the jitters, probably speaking around software AI and kind of the broader sell off.
Yeah, we've seen this sub mat of sell off, particularly and software stocks after the anthropic AI agent was announced so how could that potentially affect the results we see from Cisco particularly well.
I think the big question comes back to what is management guide towards for the remainder of twenty twenty six And everyone seemingly is marking down their software expectations. But is a company like Cisco that makes the hardware and is able to at least benefit from a huge push of AI investments. The question will be is there actually capacity?
Is their capacity constraight and are we going to hit a point where maybe some of these companies, the likes of Meta and Google, who seemingly are not slowing down on their investment, are we going to see that potentially hidden inflection point or a peak and that'll be critical
for investors. But again, this is a stock that has continued to rally over the last few days and weeks, as opposed to, as we mentioned, the big sell off that we've seen for anything that could lose out to AI making their kind of software relevant.
Along with big Tech, we're waiting for earnings from Big Max. What do we expect from McDonald's this week, Bailey, There's a lot.
Of optimism about how how McDonald's is positioning benefiting from tax rebates for the lower end consumer, benefiting potentially from your upper and middle class down shifting some of their spending. This is a company that, if you look at the chart on a twelve month basis, looks a bit like an EKG. But right now it's going to close at another record high. So this is a lot of excitement
around their new offerings. It does seem like when you talk to analysts or look through some of the notes, this is one of the companies that could benefit as a fast food operator, not only here in the US, but globally speaking. So again, does it turn into to your point of price perfection example remains to be seen, but a lot of excitement.
So there are a lot of questions that aren't there about whether the pivot, the return of the extra value meal is going to eat into McDonald's margins potentially.
Well that's the question when you look at a company like McDonald's, or you kind of look broadly speaking at some of these companies who are needing to rethink their playbook, does that impact margins and are investors willing to underwrite maybe more narrow margins for actually a return to growth. They're seemingly a bigger kind of beat on the top line.
But the questions do come back to your point. If you're using better deals or trying to get people in the door, and you're competing with other peers who are catering towards people who don't want to spend up to eat out or eat fast food, how does that ultimately impact the bottom line. But it does seem like again, at least the cell side is very optimistic, and I do want to call out the fact that if investors are rotating away from fast growing tech stocks, McDonald's is
not a bad place to park your money. And we've been seeing that play out over the last few weeks.
And along with McDonald's and Cisco Systems, we're going to get earnings as well from Tea Mobile on Wednesday. I think we had some recent beats, didn't we from Verizon and AT and T. Where does that leave the country's most valuable cell phone provider.
It's kind of stuck in a rut. If you look at the stock price right now on Team Mobile, really move in sideways. Yes, it did rally from a low at the end towards the end of January of one hundred and eighty three dollars. But when you compare or overlay their charts against AT and T to your point or Verizon, those stocks look like rocket ships. Verizon over the last week went from thirty about forty dollars a
share to forty seven dollars a share. On the flip side, AT and T is up pretty sharply after rallying after its results, So it does seem like investors maybe are baking in some optimism. There was a bit of a lift, which we typically do see with mobile or spectrum providers. We do see with airlines when one company beats, people
get a bit more optimistic. But if we're looking at a T Mobile stock that on the last twelve months is down, it doesn't seem like investors are maybe giving them the credit to benefit again from the optimism and from what all intents and purposes, kind of looks like a little bit like a rocket ship as much as it could for a communication company. What we saw for Verizon again rallying twelve percent last week after their results.
So what are the potential big growth drivers for T Mobile in this quarter?
Well, the big focus is going to be on how are they competing with AT and T With Verizon, can they continue to compete on price. We all see the Verizon ads about how if you can swap and they can beat your price for a mobile provider. The big other question is are they going to benefit potentially from what we've seen play out with SpaceX's starlink direct to consumer potentially from Starlink. The big question also is when you look at these companies in their propensity to return capital,
whether that's buybax, whether that's through dividends, managements. Commentary around that I think also will be closely watched.
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