Who Gets Measured, Who Gets Squeezed
Nvidia, Home Depot and Alphabet are among the corporate giants set to dominate the stock market this week, with investors watching for earnings, guidance and product announcements that will shape the next round of profit extraction. Nvidia, the world's most valuable company and the leading maker of artificial intelligence chips, is due to report first-quarter earnings on Wednesday night. Home Depot will kick off Club earnings on Tuesday morning, while TJX Companies is set to report on Wednesday morning. Alphabet will host its annual I/O developer conference on Tuesday and Wednesday, and also will hold its Google Marketing Live event on Wednesday.
The schedule reads like a ritual for capital: executives speak, analysts react, and the rest of the economy gets treated as background noise. The people doing the work, buying the goods, and absorbing the costs are not the ones setting the terms. They are the ones expected to live with the consequences.
Home Depot's Numbers, Workers' Reality
Home Depot's same-store sales growth in the first quarter is expected to be 0.8%, according to FactSet. Analysts at Bernstein said they do not expect Home Depot to revise its full-year guidance of flat to 2% same-store sales growth, saying the forecast "contemplated a wide range of scenarios." Bernstein also said Home Depot's SRS Distribution subsidiary may benefit from storm-related repair activity in the quarter.
Home Depot acquired SRS in 2024 as part of an aggressive push to court professional contractors who rely on wholesale distributors. It also just finalized the acquisition of an HVAC distributor. When Home Depot reported fourth-quarter results in February, it was just a few days before the start of the Iran war, which has muddied the economic backdrop and rekindled inflation. The stock has been crushed since February, when the 30-year fixed mortgage rate started climbing higher, and now trades at multiyear lows. Revenue is expected to be $41.53 billion and earnings per share are expected to be $3.41.
The numbers show how quickly the costs of war, debt and inflation get pushed downward. Storm damage becomes a revenue stream. Higher mortgage rates and a worse economic backdrop become someone else's problem while the company and its investors wait for the next quarter's tally.
The Profit Machine Keeps Moving
Fellow retailer TJX Companies is expected to report Wednesday morning. Wall Street expects same-store sales growth of 4.1% in the quarter, and investors will be watching for continued growth in transactions. The company is also expected to comment on freight costs. In recent quarters, TJX's margins had benefited from declining freight rates, but those rates have gone the wrong way because of the Iran war. Revenue is expected to be $13.98 billion and earnings per share are expected to be $1.01.
Again, the hierarchy is plain: freight rates rise, margins shift, and the burden lands somewhere below the boardroom. The war is not described here as a human catastrophe but as a market variable, a force that rearranges corporate margins and investor expectations.
For Nvidia, analysts say a "beat and raise" is the minimum requirement, meaning the company needs to beat consensus and guide above expectations for the current quarter. Investors will also be listening for commentary from CEO Jensen Huang and CFO Colette Kress on whether the investment cycle may soon slow, as well as on Nvidia's visibility into the $1 trillion sales forecast Huang issued in March at its GTC conference for sales of its Blackwell and Rubin systems starting last year through 2027.
Nvidia faces growing competition in the AI chip space from Advanced Micro Devices and custom silicon providers like Broadcom and Marvell, which work with large tech companies to design specialized chips. Analysts also want an update on capital returns to shareholders. Nvidia currently pays a quarterly dividend of 1 cent per share, resulting in a yield of 0.02%. It paid out $974 million in dividends in its fiscal year 2026, which ended in January. Nvidia repurchased $40.09 billion worth of stock last fiscal year and had $58.5 billion remaining under its share repurchase authorization.
The company is worth $5.56 trillion. FactSet projects free cash flow of $182 billion this fiscal year and even higher in the next two after that. A larger buyback would return cash, increase future per-share earnings by reducing the share count and not require future payouts beyond the authorization amount, while a dividend increase would signal confidence in demand but would commit the company to annual payouts.
AI Hype, Advertising, and the Same Old Power
Alphabet's I/O conference is expected to strengthen Google's AI positioning, though Bank of America analysts warned that the lack of a "wow" announcement could pressure the stock. Rumors suggest Google may unveil or tease its Gemini 4 AI model, following the success of Gemini 3 in November, which sent shares rallying. Investors will also watch for how Google weaves AI into its other offerings, including updates on new agentic AI capabilities, robotics, AI wearables such as smart glasses and the broader rollout of Waymo. Google Marketing Live on Wednesday will be watched for commentary on AI monetization and new advertising tools.
CEO Sundar Pichai said on the company's first-quarter earnings call that queries are already at an all-time high and that AI usage is driving Google Search usage. Google's in-house TPU chips are key to its AI efforts, but since the company just unveiled the eighth-generation family at a Google Cloud event in late April, there are low expectations for major silicon news.
The language of innovation here is inseparable from monetization. AI is not presented as a public good; it is a lever for positioning, advertising, and market control. The conference stage is where corporate power dresses itself up as progress.
The week ahead also includes a number of scheduled economic and corporate events. On Monday, May 18, Baidu is set to report before the bell. On Tuesday, May 19, pending home sales are due at 10 a.m. ET, and before the bell Home Depot, Vertiv, Amer Sports, KE Holdings, and Bilibili are scheduled to report, with Keysight, Toll Brothers and CAVA after the bell. On Wednesday, May 20, Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes are due at 2 p.m. ET, with TJX Companies, Target, Analog Devices, VF Corp, ZIM Integrated, Lowe's, Arcos, Hasbro and Baozun before the bell and Nvidia, Intuit and Urban Outfitters after the bell. On Thursday, May 21, initial jobless claims, housing starts and S&P Global Flash U.S. PMI are due, with NIO, Deere, Walmart, Advance Auto Parts, NetEase and Vipshop before the bell and Deckers, Take-Two, Workday, Zoom, Copart and Ross Stores after the bell. On Friday, May 22, the final University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is due at 10 a.m. ET, with Booz Allen Hamilton and BJ's before the bell.
Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long NVDA, HD, TJX and GOOGL.