The Week Ahead: Housing Market Data and the Fed's Rate Decision

It’s another slow week on the earnings front; we are watching for Adobe ADBE, which will be releasing its earnings report on Tuesday.

Economic reporting on housing and mortgages comes full swing next week. On Tuesday, the Housing Market Index is released, followed by the Mortgage Applications Index on Wednesday. Other economic reports include Industrial Production on Tuesday, and the Fed's rate decision on Wednesday.

Datadog, an analytics company that provides a monitoring and analytics platforms for companies’ technology stacks, will sell 24 million shares in its initial public offering. Price per share is $19 to $22. Datadog has demonstrated strong revenue growth this year, and is one of the most watched-for IPOs this fall.

On the policy front, California lawmakers passed landmark legislation that may change the future of the gig economy. The bill requires a more-stringent definition of what companies classify as a contractor; this change will require some contract workers to be considered as employees. For businesses built off of contractor labor like Lyft LYFT and Uber UBER, as well as various tech companies that have been employing increasing amounts of nonemployee labor, this bill will present challenging implications for their business models. Lyft and Uber are hoping to be excluded from this bill, and they remain undervalued in our analysis.

Tech isn’t getting a break this week. Fifty state attorneys general are investigating Google GOOGL for antitrust violations. This effort to break up big tech sounds alarms for other tech giants, like Facebook FB or Amazon AMZN. Our view on these companies has not changed with these updates.

Amid reports of more vaping-related deaths, President Donald Trump's administration is moving to ban flavored e-cigarettes that are popular among teens and young adults. Juul Lab is under fire on the policy front; the FDA says Juul illegally marketed its product as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes. These developments are certainly good news for the traditional tobacco industry, including Philip Morris International PM and Altria MO. The two major tobacco players are in talks regarding a potential all-stock merger of equals.