Key Events Next Week: U.S. Nonfarm Payrolls, China CPI, SpaceX's First Earnings Report
Claire Weston
The Aug 3–10 week stacks U.S. nonfarm payrolls, SpaceX's debut quarterly report plus a $116 billion lockup expiry, and China's July CPI into one window — macro repricing and liquidity stress converge as the week's biggest uncertainty.
Why is nonfarm payrolls the single most important number next week?
The U.S. July nonfarm payrolls report lands on Aug 7 — the first full employment reading after the Fed held rates steady at its July FOMC meeting. This means → its strength or weakness will directly set the market's pricing for a September rate cut.
Lead indicators cluster in the two days before: ADP employment (Aug 5) and initial jobless claims (Aug 6) on the labor side; ISM manufacturing PMI (Aug 3) and services PMI (Aug 5) sketch the broader July activity picture.
In plain terms = strong payrolls cool rate-cut bets; weak payrolls heat them up instantly. One number can flip the week's entire market narrative.
What is China's July price data supposed to tell us?
July CPI and PPI drop on Aug 9, the first price check after the Politburo meeting. June showed CPI at +1.0% y/y and PPI at +4.1% y/y — a modest uptick.
The same window includes July trade data and FX reserves (Aug 7), giving three data sets that together outline early signs of policy transmission.
This reflects the market's real question: has the first-half stimulus actually reached end-consumer prices yet?
SpaceX's first earnings plus the largest-ever single-stock lockup — how did they end up 48 hours apart?
After the close on Aug 4 (5:00 AM Beijing time, Aug 5), SpaceX publishes its debut quarterly report. The market's top focus: Starlink revenue scale and Starship commercialization progress. SpaceX listed on Nasdaq in May at a valuation exceeding $1.5 trillion, and profit expectations have climbed since.
Just two days later, on Aug 6, $116 billion in restricted shares unlock — reportedly the largest single-stock lockup expiry in U.S. history. This means → if earnings disappoint, selling pressure gets amplified; if they beat, some of the overhang may be absorbed.
In plain terms = the earnings report and the lockup expiry sit within 48 hours — a confidence test followed immediately by a liquidity stress test.
What else in this earnings wave is a must-watch?
AMD (after close, Aug 5): focus is on MI400-series AI chip production ramp and share shifts under Nvidia's dominance.
SanDisk (after close, Aug 6) carries an EPS estimate of ¥65.92; Western Digital (same day) is treated as the key window for storage supply-demand reads. Kioxia's miss last week has made the market more cautious on the sector.
Berkshire Hathaway is expected to report on Aug 3, with the market watching 93-year-old Warren Buffett's positioning after recent U.S. equity turbulence. In China, WuXi AppTec, BeiGene, and Cambricon headline A-share and Hong Kong mid-year reporting season, alongside Hang Seng constituents such as HSBC.
Three AI summits run simultaneously — which signals matter most?
From Aug 4 to 6, Ai4 2026, the FMS Flash Memory Summit, and the Frost & Sullivan GIL summit run in parallel. On Aug 5, Geoffrey Hinton, Fei-Fei Li, and Andrew Ng appear together at Ai4 2026 for the first time — a rare joint stage for three defining figures in AI.
Samsung is expected to unveil its next-generation HBM4E and V-NAND roadmap at FMS, with direct pricing implications for the memory supply chain.
On the industry side: BYD plans to debut a humanoid-robot prototype in early August; Unitree Robotics opens IPO price inquiry on Aug 5 with online subscription on Aug 10; DeepSeek-V4-Pro official release is flagged as "coming soon," and Musk's Grok 4.6 is also expected imminently.
What is next week's biggest uncertainty?
Nonfarm payrolls (Aug 7) and the SpaceX lockup expiry (Aug 6) overlap almost exactly. This means → within the same week, the market must digest a macro repricing signal and a single-stock liquidity shock simultaneously — an outsized move on either front amplifies the other.
In plain terms = weak payrolls + lockup selling = compounding downside risk; strong payrolls + earnings beat = manageable pressure. The combination of these two lines determines whether next week passes smoothly or swings hard.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.