Catalyst watch: GameStop earnings, box office buzz, eyes on Amazon split
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Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Catalyst Watch - a breakdown of some of next week's actionable events that stand out. Check out Saturday morning's regular Stocks to Watch article for a full list of events planned for the week or the Seeking Alpha earnings calendar for companies due to report.
Monday - May 30


All day - The U.S. stock market is closed for observance of the Memorial Day holiday.

All day - The U.S. movie industry is looking for a big holiday weekend haul with the long-delayed Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Global (PARA) finally set to feature. The movie has generated rave reviews so far and has a 97% Rotten Tomatoes score from 229 critics. Analysts are forecasting a box office haul of between $98M and $125M in what could also be a sentiment boost for theater-related stocks AMC Entertainment (AMC), Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWF), Cinemark (CNK), IMAX (IMAX) Marcus (MCS), Reading International (RDI), Cineplex (OTCPK:CPXGF) and National CineMedia (NCMI). The film is reported to have 120-day theater window before heading to streaming.

Tuesday - May 31


Volatility watch - Options trading volume is elevated on Redbox Entertainment (RDBX). Build-A-Bear Workshop (BBW) and Williams-Sonoma (WSM) have seen an increase in interest on Reddit's WallStreetBets and Stocktwits. Short interest on Beyond Meat (BYND) moved higher once again.

All week - The conference schedule is headlined next week by the Jefferies Virtual Internet Summit with Etsy (ETSY), Opendoor Technologies (OPEN), Redfin (RDFN), and Yelp (YELP) all due to appear. Other conferences include the Deutsche Bank Global Financial Services Conference, Jefferies Software Conference, Barclays Future of Media Conference, RBC Capital Markets Global Consumer & Retail Conference, KeyBanc Industrials & Basic Materials Investor Conference, Cowen 50th Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, and D.A. Davidson Bitcoin & Blockchain Conference.

All day - Quiet periods expire on Bausch + Lomb (BLCO) and PepGen (PEPG), which means analysts can start to post ratings.

12:00 p.m. Oppenheimer will hold a Future of Digital Car Wholesaling expert call to discuss the current dynamics of digital car wholesaling and specifically CarGurus (CARG) positioning with wholesalers and dealerships. The discussion will also touch on companies with other emerging wholesale platforms such as ACV Auctions (ACVA) and Carvana (CVNA) and could also be of interest to Carvana (CVNA), Vroom (VRM) and CarMax (KMX).

4:30 p.m. ChargePoint Holdings (CHPT) will hold its earnings call with some analysts expecting color on potential benefits from the U.S. infrastructure plan.

Wednesday - June 1


All day - Data reports due include updates on Macau gaming, discount broker DARTs, U.S. auto sales and monthly delivery reports from Chinese automakers Li Auto (LI), Nio (NIO) and XPeng (XPEV).

All day - Federal Reserve speakers include John Williams and James Bullard. The Fed also releases Beige Book.

All day - Watch AmerisourceBergen (ABC), Levi Strauss (LEVI), and LKQ Corporation (LKQ) with the companies holding investor day events. JPMorgan expects the AmerisourceBergen event to focus on the company's long term financial outlook, which is seen as being well-received and boosting shares. Levi Strauss (LEVI) has seen share price jumps in the past after its investor day events.

All day - Shareholders with RedBall Acquisition (RBAC) meet to vote on the SPAC deal to take SeatGeek public. SeatGeek is an official partner of some of the most recognized teams, venues, and leagues across the globe. Vivid Seats (SEAT) is a direct competitor.

All day - Shareholders with Biotech Acquisition Company (BIOT) meet to vote on the deal to take Blade Therapeutics public in a SPAC deal. The combined company will be renamed Blade Biotherapeutics and is expected to list on Nasdaq under the BBTX symbol.

10:00 a.m. Ford (F) CEO Jim Farley will participate in a fireside chat at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. Farley will describe how the company is transforming through the Ford+ plan into an industry leader in the new era of digital electric vehicles.

Postmarket - GameStop (GME) will report earnings with volatility high on the popular retail stock. Options trading is implying a post-earnings move up or down of more than 20% with call/put volume buzzing. Short interest on GME is also elevated. Chewy (CHWY) will report earnings with shares in a slump. Needham warns that the retailer's net customer additions could disappoint after extrapolating the recent results from Petco. Options trading implies a share price move of 18% after the report drops. Chewy fell 16% the last time it reported earnings.

Thursday - June 2


All day - It is a busy day of investor events with Ingredion (INGR), SunOpta (STKL), BlueLinx Holdings(BXC), Eventbrite (EB), and ZoomInfo Technologies (ZI) holding separate events that could lead to guidance revisions and strategy updates.

All day - The HSR review by the Federal Trade Commission of the proposed acquisition of Twitter (TWTR) by Elon Musk expires.

All day - The 29th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial meeting will be held by videoconference. OPEC+ is expected to stick to an oil production deal agreed last year and raise July output targets by 432,000 barrels per day. OPEC members maintain that the oil market is balanced and that the recent price hikes are not related to fundamentals. During April, OPEC+ produced 2.6M bpd below its targets with Russia accounting for half of the shortfall. Analysts said if there is a surprise from the meeting that could jolt crude oil prices (CL1:COM) it will be from the sidelines.

All day - Federal Reserve speakers include Lorie Logan and Loretta Mester.

4:30 p.m. Aptose Biosciences (APTO) is scheduled to provide an update for the investment community. The event will include an up-to-date review of clinical data available for Aptoseâs two investigational products under development for hematologic malignancies.

Postmarket -  Companies due to report earnings with options trading implying a double-digit swing up or down include PagerDuty (PD), Tilly's (TLYS), and HashiCorp (HCP).

Friday - June 3


All day - Shareholders with SVF Investment Corp. 3 meet to vote on the deal to take autonomous robot firm Symbotic public. The deal will value Symbotic at a pro forma equity value of about $5.5B. The disruptive platform already serves some of the worldâs largest retailers, grocers and wholesalers, including Walmart, Albertsons and C&S Wholesale Grocers. Recently, Walmart (WMT) announced an expanded commercial agreement with the supply chain tech upstart to implement robotics and software automation platform in all 42 of the retail giant's regional distribution centers over the coming years. Walmart (WMT) is an early backer of Symbotic and SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBY) is a sponsor of the SPAC.

All day - Amazon (AMZN) will effectuate its stock split after the closing bell. Trading on a split-adjusted basis will begin on June 6. While the split will not impact valuation or the market cap on Amazon, other tech stocks have seen rallies in the week following a major split.

All day - Cigna Corporation (CI) and Ryder System (R) are scheduled to hold investor day events.

All day - Shareholders with Mandiant (MNDT) vote on the proposed takeover by Alphabet (GOOG).

All day - The 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology runs from June 3-7. Some of the key stories being highlighted by analysts in front of the conference include Seagen's (SGEN) update on Echelon-1, the battle between Amgen's (AMGN) lumakras and Mirati Therapeutics' (MRTX) adagrasib, and the update from PMV Pharmaceuticals (PMVP) on PC14586. Some healthcare stocks are likely to see analyst revisions based on the ASCO presentations.

8:30 a.m. The nonfarm payrolls report for May will be released. Economists forecast 329K jobs addition for the month to fall back from the 428K job adds in April. The unemployment rate is seen drifting to 3.5% from 3.6%. Bank of America thinks wage growth should continue to be boosted by the tight labor market, high quits rate, and plenty of outside opportunities for workers with 1.9 job openings listed for every unemployed person.