Labor report and Gitlab, Crowdstrike earnings: Cramer’s week ahead

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday told investors what to pay attention to next week on Wall Street, highlighting the nonfarm payroll report and earnings from GitlLab and CrowdStrike.

“To those of you who want the Fed to cut so badly that you’re staying on the sidelines until they do,” he said, “you’d better hope we get some weakness in the employment numbers next Friday.”

GitLab will report on Monday. Cramer said he’s waiting to see how the company will perform because some in the enterprise software sector see issues with sales. He noted that GitLab’s last quarter was disappointing, but it seemed like a one-off. Perhaps that report was actually a precursor of trouble to come in the industry, he said.

Tuesday brings quarterly results from CrowdStrike, and Cramer said this cybersecurity company has been doing better than many of its peers.

Hewlett Packard, Ferguson and PVH also report Tuesday. Cramer will be waiting to see how the electronics makers stacks up against competitors like Dell. According to Cramer, Ferguson is a great way to invest in infrastructure. He’ll also be watching PVH, known from brands like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, but said he prefers Ralph Lauren in the apparel space.

Dollar Tree, Campbell Soup, Jack Daniels-maker Brown-Forman and Lululemon will report on Wednesday. Cramer said he wonders if Brown-Forman will be able to explain what’s hurting liquor sales, as well as whether a difficult and crowded market for athleisure is already “baked into” Lululemon’s stock.

On Thursday, JM Smucker and DocuSign are expected to report. Cramer said JM Smucker needs to find something to make the company grow faster, and he wondered how DocuSign will figure out how to turn business around.

Friday brings perhaps the most important event of the week, according to Cramer, the Labor Department’s nonfarm payroll report. Cramer said the Federal Reserve won’t be inclined to cut rates until the unemployment rate reaches 4%. In April, the unemployment inched up to 3.9% from March‘s 3.8%.