Five companies report earnings, a full slate of economic data lands, and Friday closes with the August jobs report. Here is what actually matters this week and why traders are watching each piece.
What's on the economic calendar this week?
The week opens with the ISM Manufacturing PMI on Tuesday, September 1 at 10:00 AM ET, the first hard read on US factory activity for August. Wednesday brings JOLTS job openings data and the Fed's Beige Book. Thursday adds weekly jobless claims and the ISM Services PMI. Friday closes the week with the August jobs report at 8:30 AM ET.
Tuesday's ISM Manufacturing PMI release is the earliest broad signal on whether factory activity is still contracting, since the index has spent most of 2026 below the 50 expansion line. Wednesday's JOLTS report shows how many open positions employers are still carrying, a labor-demand gauge the Fed watches alongside the unemployment rate.
Thursday's ISM Services PMI matters more for the broader economy than manufacturing does, since services make up the bulk of US output. Friday's August jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the week's single biggest data point, landing three trading days before the Fed's September 16 decision.
Which five companies report earnings, and when?
Dell, Palo Alto Networks and MongoDB all report after Tuesday's close. Broadcom and Snowflake follow after Wednesday's close. All five dates come directly from company press releases and investor relations pages, not third-party estimates.
Dell Technologies reports fiscal second-quarter results Tuesday, with its call at 3:30 PM CDT. Palo Alto Networks closes out its full fiscal 2026 year the same day, with a call at 4:30 PM ET. MongoDB reports fiscal second-quarter results for the period ended July 31, with a 5:00 PM ET call.
Broadcom reports fiscal third-quarter results Wednesday after close, call at 5:00 PM ET. Snowflake reports fiscal second-quarter results the same day, call at 5:00 PM ET. Two software names and a chip name landing on back-to-back nights gives a clean read on enterprise IT and AI infrastructure spending heading into the fall.
What does the market need from Friday's jobs report?
July's report showed unemployment falling to 4.10% even as payrolls shrank by 23,000, because the labor force participation rate dropped to 61.4%, the lowest level since early 2021. The rate fell for the wrong reason: people leaving the workforce, not more people finding jobs.
That detail matters going into Friday. A repeat of July's pattern, a lower headline unemployment rate driven by shrinking participation rather than hiring, would read very differently from a genuine improvement in the labor market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the full breakdown at 8:30 AM ET Friday, three trading days ahead of the Fed's next rate decision.
Where do Fed rate odds stand heading into the print?
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's hawkish Jackson Hole speech on August 28 pushed September rate-hike odds sharply higher. CME's FedWatch tool moved from roughly 35% odds of a hike to as high as 59% within a day, while Kalshi's prediction market shows traders pricing a 48% chance of a hike.
The Fed has held its target range at 3.50%-3.75% for five straight meetings. Warsh told the Jackson Hole audience that "this summer's PCE and CPI readings were better than expected" but "do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved," a line that did most of the damage to rate-cut hopes. The two-year Treasury yield rose as much as 9 basis points to 4.32% on the speech, per CNBC's Jackson Hole coverage. Friday's jobs report is now the swing factor between those two probabilities.
How did last week set up this one?
The S&P 500 closed Friday at 7,711.76, down 0.25% on the day but still up 0.5% for the week, its first winning week in three. The pullback came directly from Warsh's speech landing mid-session.
The Nasdaq Composite closed Friday at 26,402.42, down 0.52% on the day and up 0.9% on the week. The Dow closed at 53,559.99, essentially flat on the day and up 0.5% on the week. All three indexes head into this week's earnings and data load with a positive weekly close intact, despite Friday's rate-driven wobble.
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