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Kevin Warsh’s Fed nomination may reshape January payrolls reaction. (0:17) Amazon and Alphabet earnings spotlight AI demand and cost cuts. (1:01) Bitcoin dips below $80K as investors debate rotation back. (2:00)
The following is an abridged transcript:
This week brings another dose of the mega and the macro. More megacap earnings arrive alongside the January jobs report.
Economists expect nonfarm payrolls rose by 68K last month, with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.4 %.
But this time, the jobs numbers come with a twist. The actual figures may play second fiddle to what new Fed-chair nominee Kevin Warsh has to say about them.
If payrolls come in hotter than expected, does he still stick to the White House script that rates need to come down?
Seeking Alpha analyst Hawkinvest says the labor market “could deteriorate rapidly from here,” with AI giving companies an option to increase layoffs and forgo new hires. They add that if the job market continues to soften, it could ease inflation pressures through 2026 and give the Fed more room to cut than some policymakers currently expect.
Turning to the earnings calendar, two more megacaps are up this week: Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL) reports Wednesday, and Amazon (AMZN) reports Thursday.
Amazon is expected to post EPS of $1.94 on revenue of $211B, and analysts are leaning toward an upside surprise. Seeking Alpha analyst Nova Capital says AWS capacity additions — including more than a gigawatt in Q4 — should help convert backlog into revenue, as AI infrastructure demand continues to outpace supply across regions.
Nova also points to Amazon’s recent layoffs — roughly 10% of its corporate workforce — as another potential tailwind, as the company shifts from high-cost labor toward AI-driven agents and machine learning models. That theme is still echoing across Big Tech.
Beyond the megacaps, it’s a packed week.
Monday brings results from Palantir (PLTR) and Walt Disney (DIS).
Tuesday is busy with AMD (AMD), Merck (MRK), PepsiCo (PEP), Amgen (AMGN) and Pfizer (PFE).
Wednesday has Eli Lilly (LLY), AbbVie (ABBV), Uber (UBER) and Qualcomm (QCOM). Shell (SHEL) reports Thursday, and Friday wraps with Toyota (TM) and Philip Morris (PM).
In the news this weekend, bitcoin (BTC-USD) slipped below $80K, the lowest level since April 2025, marking its fourth straight monthly drop.
The total crypto market cap is down about 4%, below $2.8T, while bitcoin has slipped behind Tesla (TSLA) to become the world’s 12th-largest asset by market cap, according to CoinGecko.
But with a Strong Buy rating, Seeking Alpha Investing Group Leader James Foord remains bullish. “Ultimately, I think we could very well see a rotation into bitcoin,” he said. “It’s happened before, there are fundamental reasons to support this, and the technicals also line up.”
And for income investors: Citigroup (C) goes ex-dividend Monday, paying out Feb. 27. MetLife (MET) goes ex-dividend Tuesday with a March 10 payout date. And Valero (VLO) goes ex-dividend Thursday, paying out March 9.
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