Powell's Blink, Cloud Earnings, & Trending Stocks: MCD, DLTR, YETI

On today’s episode of Free Lunch, Ryan McQueeney recaps news involving McDonald’s, Dollar Tree, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Yeti. Later, he chats with Dave Bartosiak about Fed chair Jerome Powell’s speech and upcoming earnings reports from cloud stocks like VMware, Workday, and Splunk.

Want more video content from Zacks? Subscribe to Zacks Investment News now!

Free Lunch is presented by Zacks Investment Research. It is streamed live, four times per week, and features breaking news and analysis from Zacks strategists. Free Lunch is available on YouTube, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) Live, Twitter, Ustream, and more.

U.S. stocks pulled back slightly in morning trading Thursday, as investors shifted their focus from the Fed to this week’s G20 summit. Still, Fed chair Jerome Powell’s shift in sentiment created a strong rally yesterday afternoon, and investors worried about rising interest rates seem to have found some reprieve.

Investors were also reacting a plethora of headlines from several notable trending stocks.

McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) grabbed attention after analysts from Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) upgraded the burger chain amid hopes for its store modernization efforts.

On the earnings front, retailers Dollar Tree (NASDAQ:DLTR) and Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE:ANF) saw their share prices surge in morning trading after posting mixed results, while recent IPO Yeti Holdings (NYSE:YETI) dropped on the back of its first report as a public company.

On the first half of today’s show, Ryan recaps each of these headlines and provides his perspective on the day’s news. Later, he is joined by Zacks Strategist Dave Bartosiak to dive further into Jerome Powell’s speech and examine a few major cloud stocks ahead of earnings.

Dave described Powell’s new tone as a “blink,” meaning that the Fed has shifted slightly thanks to new bit of economic data. This is far from a dramatic change to monetary policy, but it does mean that those worried about runaway rate hikes can likely breathe a sigh of relief.

The strategist also chats about the potential for profits in the “late” earnings season and briefly previews this afternoon’s reports from VMware (NYSE:VMW) , Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) , and Splunk (NASDAQ:SPLK) .

Which of these three cloud and data plays does Dave think could soar after earnings today? Make sure to check out the show to find out!

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.

See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>