Big Tech Earnings and a Federal Reserve Decision Headline a Pivotal Week for Markets

Wall Street is bracing for one of the most consequential weeks of the fall, with a dense calendar of Big Tech earnings and a Federal Reserve policy decision arriving together. Stock futures reopen Sunday evening, and investors are positioning for results from Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, and Amazon, three of the giant cloud and artificial intelligence companies whose spending plans have powered much of the market's run this year. Drug maker Eli Lilly and chip company SanDisk also headline the week's reporting schedule.

The central question hanging over the earnings reports is artificial intelligence. The market wants confirmation that the so-called hyperscalers will keep spending heavily to build AI infrastructure, but it increasingly wants to see evidence of a return on that investment. Meta Platforms has already given investors a taste of the tension: it delivered strong results and slightly increased its capital spending plans, yet also reported its first cash burn since it went public in 2012, a reminder of how expensive the AI build-out has become.

On Wednesday, attention shifts to the Federal Reserve, which concludes its policy meeting with an announcement in the afternoon, followed by remarks from Chair Kevin Warsh. The central bank is expected to keep interest rates steady at this meeting, but investors will parse every word for signals about what comes next, with many expecting the Fed to indicate that further tightening is likely. The decision lands while a government shutdown backdrop and elevated oil prices, driven by fears of renewed conflict with Iran, have kept traders cautious.

The market enters the week after a stretch of modest and mixed trading. Major indexes posted small weekly moves, repeatedly regaining and then losing their 50-day moving averages, a technical sign of indecision. Friday's session ended with slight gains, as the S&P 500 rose about 0.16 percent, the Nasdaq Composite about 0.14 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average about 0.07 percent, helped by recovering semiconductor and software shares.

The resilience of chip and AI stocks has been a recurring theme even as the broader market churns. Shares in semiconductor names recently jumped after OpenAI announced partnerships with South Korean firms for a major AI infrastructure initiative valued at $500 billion, lifting suppliers in Asia and the United States alike. Not every mover was an AI story, however: Fair Isaac surged more than 22 percent after launching a program that lets mortgage lenders access and distribute FICO credit scores directly to consumers, bypassing the big credit bureaus. Shares of TransUnion fell about 12 percent on the news and Equifax about 10 percent, a reminder that this earnings season has produced violent single-stock swings in both directions.

Analysts describe the divide in the market as increasingly stark: AI-linked stocks on one side, and nearly everything else on the other. That split means this week's results could move the entire market, not just the reporting companies. Strong guidance from the tech giants, paired with a Fed message that does not rattle bond investors, could steady the rally. Disappointing AI returns or a hawkish surprise from the central bank, by contrast, would test a market that has been hovering near record levels despite a long list of risks.