Here are the 4 big things we're watching in the stock market in the week ahead

Earnings season isn't over just yet. Plus, there are plenty of other important updates coming our way this week, from influential tech conferences to jobs data and spin-off milestones. Let's dive into it all. 1. Earnings: Quarterly earnings are always a huge and exciting focus for us at the Club. While we're at the tail end of this earnings season, we've got three Club names set to report this week, and they are big ones. First, Palo Alto Networks delivers its results Tuesday after the close. Then, on Wednesday evening, CrowdStrike and Broadcom are on tap. We'll start with our cybersecurity plays in Palo Alto Network and CrowdStrike. Thankfully, the market has finally come around to our view that AI is a major tailwind for security providers, not the headwind the market priced earlier this year when these stocks were left for dead . Their remarkable comeback does present a challenge into earnings. It's not that we believe the companies aren't capable of meeting Wall Street's estimates. The issue is with both trading at all-time highs — and ones that are significantly above their old records before the AI-driven sell-off this year — the bar for earnings is elevated. As a result, a beat on the reported numbers is the absolute minimum we need to see. More important will be management's near-term outlook and commentary on the call to assure investors demand for cybersecurity has taken a definitive leg higher now that AI is being ingrained into every aspect of the enterprise. …