What to Watch on Wall Street This Week: Nadella's News, Waffle Tacos
You can never know in advance all the news that will move the market in a given week, but some things you can see coming. From Taco Bell hoping to take a bigger bite out of the breakfast market to another fast-food chain pulling up with its latest quarterly results, here are some of the things that will help shape the week that lies ahead on Wall Street.
Monday -- Sonic Boom
Sonic (SONC) operates the country's largest chain of drive-in restaurants. The key word there is "drive-in," as folks pull into parking spaces with intercoms where they place their orders. If you're lucky a carhop on roller skates will roll on over with your order. There are 3,500 Sonic drive-ins across the country, serving roughly 3 million customers a day.
Sonic kicks off the final full trading week of the quarter with its latest financial report. Analyst see a profit of 6 cents a share, up slightly from last year's showing, on flat sales growth.
Tuesday -- Office Space
One of the savvier ways to check the pulse of corporate America is to see how furniture sales are holding up. If companies are hiring again, there's a fair shot that they will also be needing new task chairs, desks and other office staples.
Herman Miller (MLHR) reported its latest quarterly results this past Wednesday. On Tuesday we'll see see how its peer Steelcase (SCS) fared during the holiday quarter that's extends into early February. In other words, if companies were spending money on new furniture earlier this year, it will show up in Steelcase's numbers. Analysts see revenue climbing 7 percent in Steelcase's latest quarter.
Wednesday -- Meet Microsoft's New Boss
There's a new sheriff in town at Microsoft (MSFT) and on Wednesday CEO Satya Nadella will host his first media event since taking over at the world's largest software company.
It may be special. Some reports claim that Microsoft will announce availability of Office -- its suite of productivity programs that includes Word word processing, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations -- for iPad users. Microsoft has avoided making those programs available to non-Windows tablets, but this seems to be a realization that it's better to support rival mobile devices than to miss out on the revenue.
Thursday -- Breakfast in Cancun
The breakfast market has been heating up, and Yum Brands' (YUM) Taco Bell is ready to cash in with a national rollout of a breakfast menu on Thursday. %VIRTUAL-article-sponsoredlinks%We're talking about burritos with scrambled eggs and the Waffle Taco that it was testing in select markets last summer.
There's plenty at stake in the suddenly crowded market for morning commuters, but Taco Bell has typically opened early to make sure that it gets the early risers with its regular menu. We'll see if this creates a spike in its business, and it should since it would seem to be incremental.
Friday -- Doing Cardio at the Mall
On Friday morning Finish Line (FINL) will take a victory lap. The mall retailer sells athletic footwear, performance apparel and accessories through 644 stores across the country. It also manages the athletic shoes department at 651 Macy's (M) stores.
Athletic footwear retailer is normally a sleepy niche, but Finish Line appears to be sprinting these days. Analysts see sales and earnings per share climbing 20 percent and 12 percent, respectively.
Motley Fool contributor Rick Munarriz has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft.
