🚨Next Week is the Most Important Week for the Stock Market in 2026

Next week changes everything and we have a lot to cover today. Have you seen some of the AI ETFs this year? SMH, which is a semiconductor ETF, is up year to date over 27%. This one holds all the semiconductor companies and they have been on fire, especially Micron, which is up over 50% just this year to date alone. A couple of AI stocks that I'm high on that aren't necessarily semiconductors. They're actually more so in the power and infrastructure side of things. Those would be ones that I've talked a lot about here on this channel. And that would be like APLD, Irene, and Nebus. IN is up 21% for the year to date. ALD is up almost 30% for the year to date. And Nebius, Nebius is up 77%. These things are all on fire. Along with SMH, another really solid ETF is one that I started talking a lot about last year and I've told you guys about a couple of times and a lot of people have been asking, how can I get some of that digital infrastructure but also have the semiconductors and just kind of have a good solid place to invest in AI but not sell out to any one specific sector. This one is DTCR and it's the Global X data center and digital infrastructure ETF. It's up almost 30% year to date. It's awesome because look at the holdings. It has APL and other data center stocks booming right now, but then also has those solid companies crushing it like Micron, AMD, Broadcom, Taiwan Semiconductor, Nvidia, and more. Global data center revenues are expected to increase from a projected $416 billion to $624 billion to support the growth of generative AI, mobile connectivity, smart grids, and other grid-based infrastructure. People are always asking me about those types of ETFs and what's on my radar these days, specifically in the world of AI because that is the hot thing. And I can just see that over the next 10 years, these types of ETFs are going to be very solid. So, I do like SMH and I do like DTCR. So, this is the Saturday news roundup video and next week is going to be a huge week in the stock market. Literally one that shapes the entire stock market. And just so you know, usually I make these news roundup videos on Friday afternoon after the whole week has happened so that I can give you a good idea of what happened, give you the snapshot quick and easy so that you can move on with your day. This week I'm going to be out of town and so I'm doing this on Thursday and so if anything big happens on Friday, don't light me up on the comment section as to why I didn't talk about it. I'm giving you the reason right now, but also I'll make sure and bring that up in the next video next Saturday. And you guys know my name is Nolan Goa. My students call me Professor G, and I made this channel to make investing simplified. Remember that all investing carries risk, so do your own research. This is not financial advice, and I'm not a financial adviser. So this coming week is huge. This is where over 20% of the entire S&P 500 is reporting its earnings. Now right now markets are incredibly high and they're pricing in strong earnings. The bar is very high. So this means that these companies need to meet but actually more so exceed any type of expectations or else this market is going to crumble. We very much need more than just earnings beats. We also need AI narratives and guidance. That's what we'll be looking for in the earnings reports coming up. And I'm going to fill you in on three huge themes that you need to watch for all throughout this next week. And this is what's going to guide the entire market. Number one would be AI monetization reality check. Number two would be consumer strength versus cracks. And number three would be the market risk. Now, we all know that right now going on outside of just these earnings reports happening in the United States is something bigger that's going on in the entire world with what's happening with the conflict in the Middle East and oil prices and all of this stuff. But what we don't know right now is any type of certainty around that. We are somewhat in a ceasefire or not. And things just keep changing and so we have no real idea what's going on there and what the timeline's going to be, especially in the next week or two. things could be totally different next week or a week from then. So, let's just talk about what we do know, what happened this past week, and what's going to be coming up. So, like I said, stocks have been hitting record highs, but there are some cracks showing up. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ just hit fresh all-time highs this week. It was driven largely by AI stocks, specifically semiconductor rallies, and some strong earnings momentum. But markets are showing cracks underneath. Pullbacks are happening intraday. Defensive positioning is increasing. Volatility is creeping up. The markets look strong on the surface, but it's fragile and headline driven. So, this week we had some huge earnings reports. Let me touch on three or four of these companies and what actually happened because it's important for you to understand what happened in the market and why it happened that way to be able to look at what's going to happen next week. So, overall, what's the big picture from this past week? 85% or so of the companies are beating estimates so far. The market reactions mixed because the guidance is more important than the actual earnings beats. And you'll see this in a second. AI spending and geopolitics like specifically oil are the two dominant themes. Obviously, industrial and semiconductors are showing strength, but in software cracks are showing. So this week, the biggest company was Tesla. Their revenue is about 22.4 billion, which is about a positive 16% year-over-year. They had strong growth in their earnings per share. The big story though is the massive AI plus robo taxi spending ramp over $25 billion as planned there. The weird thing was that the stock dipped despite strong numbers because of the concerns about spending. Tesla is showing that they're changing from just an EV company to an AI platform. Next big company here was Texas Instruments. The earnings per share was $1.68 which beat versus the $1.36 expected. They had revenue of positive 19% year-over-year and the stock surged about 10% after earnings. The industrial plus auto chip demand is still strong and margins are improving. Now, a side note on this one. Texas Instrument is actually one of the biggest companies in SCHD, and this helped that ETF a bunch, which is quietly one of the strongest of 2026, up over 13% so far year to date and over 23% for the past entire year. Next company was IBM and they beat earnings, but the stock dropped 7 to 12%. The reason was weak guidance and the AI disruption concern. Like I said before, beating isn't enough. The environment and guidance matters more. A huge one was Service Now because they met expectations. They did everything they were supposed to do, but the stock dropped over 12%. Basically because of weak deal flow due to macro and geopolitics. Enterprise Software is definitely feeling macro pressure. The last one's American Airlines. Their revenue was 13.9 billion, meaning that they had a record Q1. the strong demand despite weather impacts and this means that travel demand's still holding up. But we'll see what happens because if the oil prices get worse, that's definitely going to hurt travel. Now, another asset class that's been booming or at least starting to grow finally is Bitcoin. It's up pretty solid over the past month. And so, speaking of Bitcoin, thank you to Nexo for sponsoring this video. Nexo is the premier wealth platform for digital assets. Nexo blends cutting edge blockchain technology with time-tested financial principles, offering a platform where your assets can truly work for you. I love Nexo because it's a great way for you to be able to manage your wealth on your terms, specifically with your digital assets. They have this flexible savings that pays out daily with no lock up, or you can access annual interest rates as high as 16% with fixedterm yield. This can all be done super easy in just a few steps. Just buy or transfer your crypto, stay on top of your balance, start acrewing interest, and eventually you could tap into even higher rates. 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First is going to be Microsoft, one of the most important reports of the entire quarter. The focus here is on the Azour growth, the cloud, and AI monetization like co-pilot and enterprise AI. The stock's already been moving hard into earnings. This is going to set the tone for AI trade continuation. Next would be Alphabet or Google. The key focus is the AI search competition, YouTube ad revenue, and cloud growth. Markets are watching is AI hurting search margins or boosting engagement. Then we got Meta. The focus there is ad revenue strength, AI ad targeting improvements, reality labs losses. This one right here is one of the biggest AI and advertising plays. We also have Apple. The focus there is iPhone demand trends, China sales and services growth. Apple's one of those companies that just often moves the entire index sentiment. Now, it's not just technology. We also have consumer and brand power like Starbucks. The key focus there is the US versus China demand. This is going to tell us some consumer strength. A strong read on consumer spending health usually comes from Starbucks. Then there's also energy or industrial that way. A huge name lately is Bloom Energy. This is the AI data center energy demand narrative, specifically hydrogen and clean energy angle. Here's an easy to read and follow chart for you to save. maybe screenshots so you know what to watch for each day. Especially watch Wednesday because that could produce some fireworks. Like I said, over 20% of the S&P 500 companies report in this window. The heaviest hitters are Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Apple, and they all report within about 48 hours. This cluster can move the entire market direction. As always, I'll be here next Saturday to give you an update on what we saw over the week because we are sure to see some craziness this week. For the time being, watch either of these two videos to keep you going strong in investing. And remember to keep investing simplified.