This Week

Readers may find this difficult to believe, but the kickoff of Q3 earnings season is not at the top of what's important this week. For starters, another major hurricane (Milton) bears down on the Floridan peninsula from the Gulf of Mexico and could severely impact some areas still not close to having recovered from Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.

On the macro side, September CPI and PPI will hit the tape this Thursday and Friday respectively, while the Fed Minutes of the last meeting will be published this Wednesday. Those Minutes will be released, of course, amid another blizzard of Fed speakers, though there seems to be no one at the moment, able to send a coherent message on policy that makes economic sense.

I think the most important items this week will be on the corporate side, but not earnings-related, and from the semiconductor industry in particular. As you'll recall, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang told us last week that demand for his new Blackwell architecture AI-chips was "insane." One must realize that Huang, while a superstar executive, still has a narrative to sell. Not knocking, I am a shareholder.

That said, on Friday, the Semiconductor Industry Association announced that semiconductor sales were up 21% year over year in August. On Saturday, Foxconn posted record Q3 growth. Take that how you want, but Foxconn is Apple's (AAPL) largest iPhone assembler and also a supplier to Nvidia as well.

Then there are this week's events. Nvidia will hold the firm's AI Summitt from today (Monday) through Wednesday in Washington. The focus will be on AI to drive breakthroughs in healthcare, cybersecurity, robotics and industrial digitization. Then on Thursday, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will hold that firm's Advancing AI event. Think NVDA will fall on its face? Me neither. Think Lisa Su will rise to the challenge presented by Jensen Huang? Me too.