Stock Market Week: Nvidia’s AI Woodstock, Fed Meeting, Quad Witching

Best to skip the sugarcoating and just say it was a lousy week for the stock market. The losses were not horrendous: a 1.6% drop for the S&P 500, the Nasdaq down 1.3% and the Dow clocking a 2% drop. But they were enough to leave all three major indexes in tests support at their 200-day moving averages, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 also sitting just above their November lows.

That makes the coming week an important one.

Earnings season grinds toward its finish with Micron Technology (MU) and a mending FedEx (FDX) topping the week’s earnings calendar. A number of interesting names in defense and space, energy and retail also report, along with Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group (BABA).

But stock market investors will start the week tuned to Nvidia‘s (NVDA) GTC conference — the AI Woodstock — on Monday. That is immediately followed by two events. First, the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting concludes Wednesday. Also, the two-day D.C. Blockchain Summit in Washington will include commentary from a long list of heavyweight regulators and lawmakers beginning Tuesday.

Finally, the week will wrap up with the March quadruple witching day on Friday. This typically means that — whether up or down — the stock market is likely to end the week with a strong burst of trading volume.