Wall Street investors in the week ahead will focus mainly on the upcoming speech by US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ahead of the year’s final monetary policy decision. Mr Powell is scheduled to speak at a panel discussion in Stanford on Monday. Besides the Fed, market participants will closely monitor a series of critical economic data releases. These include reports on private employment, manufacturing activity, personal income and spending figures, and the long-awaited, delayed Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) index report – a key inflation gauge for the US central bank. The week is also a busy period for earnings season. Several major retail giants are due to report their quarterly results, including Kroger, Dollar General and Dollar Tree. Furthermore, chipmaker Marvell and tech giant Salesforce are scheduled to release their latest numbers. Economic Calendar On December 1 (Monday), separate reports on S&P’s final US manufacturing PMI for November and ISM manufacturing for November will be released. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will speak at a panel discussion in Stanford on Monday. On December 2 (Tuesday), TBA Auto sales data for November will be released. Michelle Bowman, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board for Supervision, is scheduled to testify on Tuesday. On December 3 (Wednesday), separate reports on ADP employment for November, Import Price Index (delayed report) for September, S&P final US services PMI for November, and ISM services for November will be released. On December 4 (Thursday), separate reports on initial jobless claims for the week ending November 29 and US trade deficit for October will be released. On December 5 (Friday), separate reports on personal income and spending (delayed reports) for September, PCE index (delayed report) for September, consumer sentiment (preliminary) for December, consumer credit for October will be released. Earnings The following companies will report third quarter results in the coming week – MongoDB, CrowdStrike Holdings, Marvell, GitLab, Salesforce, Snowflake, Dollar Tree, C3.ai, Kroger, Ulta Beauty, Hewlett Packard, Dollar General and Victoria’s Secret. Markets Last week US stocks closed higher on Friday in a shortened post-Thanksgiving session, driven by gains in retail and a rebound in technology stocks. The S&P 500 rose 36.48 points, or 0.5%, to 6,849.09. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 289.30 points, or 0.6%, to 47,716.42. The Nasdaq Composite added 151 points, or 0.7%, to 23,365.69. The three indices showed weekly gains. The S&P 500 rose 3.73%, the Nasdaq rose 4.91% and the Dow climbed 3.18%. For the month, the S&P and the Dow swung marginally positive, while the Nasdaq fell 1.51%. The 10-year Treasury yield was up slightly at 4.02%.