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Former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz touted his background as a poor kid from Brooklyn during the rollout this week of his potential independent presidential run — but the billionaire’s overall performance got a big Bronx cheer from political analysts.

Larry Sabato, the long-time University of Virginia political science guru, burst out laughing — at some length — when CNBC asked him to evaluate how Schultz did in introducing himself to the American public as the nation’s next potential president during a whirlwind series of media interviews.

“I’m sorry,” Sabato said, as he continued chuckling.

“Long and short: The rollout has been good in the sense that he has been introduced to millions of people who have never heard of him,” Sabato said. “I had to learn how to spell his name.”

“But the downside of his rollout is that millions almost immediately took a strong dislike to him for different reasons, something that apparently Schultz and his high-paid consultants aren’t noticing,” Sabato added.

Those consultants include Republican strategist and former MSNBC commentator Steve Schmidt and Bill Burton, a former advisor to President Barack Obama.

“The truth is the guy has announced for president, gotten enormous amount of coverage, and doesn’t appear to have support from anybody,” Sabato said.

Sabato and others said Schultz — who already was facing long odds of winning by saying that if he runs for the White House in 2020 it will be as an independent — hurt his chances during the week even further with a series of unforced errors. The former giant coffee chain CEO also opportunities left on the table, they said.

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Analysts interviewed by CNBC cited the fierce backlash Schultz sparked by committing to running as independent, leading many Democrats to blast him for risking throwing the election to President Donald Trump by siphoning off enough would-be Democratic votes.

A day after announcing his potential bid Sunday, at a New York City event to launch his book, “From the Ground Up,” Schultz was met with a heckler who shouted, “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire a—–!” The incident was widely shared on social media.

Analysts also noted Schultz’s own strong criticism of the Democratic Party, which they said risks alienating many voters that he likely would need to be able to win the election.

“It concerns me that so many voices within the Democratic Party are going so far to the left,” Schultz said earlier this week. “If I ran as a Democrat, I would have to say things in my heart I do not believe.”

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And analysts said his focus on a platform committed to lowering the national debt is likely to fall flat with voters the election cycle, as opposed to the 1992 election when independent Ross Perot caught fire with a candidacy centered on that issue.

Then there is Schultz’s vast wealth, lack of political experience and his charisma — or what analysts said was his lack thereof.

A spokesman for Schultz did not respond to a request for comment.

Sabato said that Schultz and his advisors “didn’t seem to understand that most Americans aren’t looking for another white billionaire using bromides and buzzwords who has had zero experience in government.”

“We’ve already got one.”

Robert Shapiro, a Columbia University professor who previously chaired the Department of Political Science there, said he believed Schultz may have made a strategic error by floating the idea of his candidacy too “early” in the election cycle.

“If you’re running as an independent, you want to get attention and you want to have voters see where you fit in the political space,” Shapiro said.

That is usually easiest, Shapiro said, when an independent has a good idea of who his opponents will be.

Tweet

While Trump is very likely to be the Republican Party’s nominee in 2020, the Democratic field is completely wide open and still might be so a full year from now.

“It does raise the question of if Schultz’s strategy would be better if he first ran in the [Democratic] party and then ran as an independent afterward” if he failed to secure the nomination, Shapiro said.

He and other analysts noted that it is possible for Schultz, or another independent, to garner a significant share of the popular vote. Perot got 19 percent in 1992, after actually leading in public opinion polls at some point that year.

But Shapiro pointed out that Perot received “no electoral votes” that year despite his relatively strong showing in the popular vote.

The Electoral College determines who wins the presidency — not the popular vote.

It is possible for an independent to win electoral votes, as George Wallace did with 46 electoral votes in 1968. But if Schultz won enough votes to play the spoiler in 2020, and no candidate was able to score the 270 electoral votes needed win the presidency, the election would then be decided by the House of Representatives.

And “the House has Democrats and Republicans,” Shapiro said.

David Barker, professor of government and director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, said Schultz’s “rollout went quite poorly.” The former Starbucks CEO also seems to have overestimated the pool of voters who could be induced to vote for him, Barker said.

“The vast majority of ‘independents’ are simply ideologues who do not want to identify with their natural party because they believe that party sells out too much or is too interested with protecting its power rather than pursuing particular ideological goals,” Barker said.

“In other words, they don’t like the party because the party is not pure enough.”

But “the group of pure independents who are truly up for grabs is about 10 percent, and most of them are quite disengaged from politics so not necessarily voters,” Barker said.

Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science and communications studies at UCLA, said that she thinks that if Schultz “could have a do-over” for his possible candidacy announcement, “he probably would take it.”

She said she was struck by the difference between how Schultz announced his potential run for the White House during an interview with “60 Minutes” last Sunday, and how Trump announced his bid in 2015, and how Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., did so this week.

“Those events” — the ones other than Schultz’s — “looked like presidential campaign events,” Vavreck said.

She noted that choices of the setting and production values, down to the the music, used for the announcements of Trump, Harris and Booker seemed to reflect a series level of planning by professional advisors around those candidates.

In contrast, she said, Shultz’s interview “didn’t have that professional feel … I don’t get the sense that he had a strategy or them to his message worked out with a key core, a key group of people.”

“It doesn’t signal to me … that he’s put a lot of effort into thinking about the run,” Vavreck said.

She also was critical of Schultz’s messaging on “60 Minutes” and in interviews later in the week.

“Mostly what I heard from him was a reaction to Democrats and Republicans and everything they’re doing wrong,” Vavreck said.

She said that while it’s true that Congress ranks low in terms of public opinion, and many people have criticisms of the major parties, it’s a mistake to think that “I can go out and say those things and people will vote for me and I’ll win.”

Vavreck said presidential contenders have to have “a theme, a message.”

“You have to give people a reason to vote for you, to be one of your team. Not just ‘I’m that guy,’ ” she said. “People want to be with you for a cause. Not just because you’re not something else.”

Sabato, of the University of Virginia, said Schultz’s failure to lay out a compelling message, or “a crusade … that matters to people” and would get them to vote for him, indicates what is motivating Schultz to run as an independent.

“It’s a vanity project, and that’s his giant mistake,” Sabato said “Here’s what surprised me, is that with all of that money and all of that time and all of those high-priced consultants, he comes on ’60 Minutes’ and he talks about the debt? He thinks that’s going to win him the presidency?”

Sabato said that a number of his political science students “didn’t even know about him,” even after the “60 Minutes” interview.

Those students who did know Schultz were underwhelmed.

“This one young lady said, ‘He left me cold. Because there was nothing there,’ ” Sabato recalled.

—Additional reporting by CNBC’s Brian Schwartz

Former Starbucks chief Howard Schultz touted his background as a poor kid from Brooklyn during the rollout this week of his potential independent presidential run — but the billionaire’s overall performance got a big Bronx cheer from political analysts.

Larry Sabato, the longtime University of Virginia political science guru, burst out laughing — at some length — when CNBC asked him to evaluate how Schultz did in introducing himself to the American public as the nation’s next potential president during a whirlwind series of media interviews.

“I’m sorry,” Sabato said, as he continued chuckling.

“Long and short: The rollout has been good in the sense that he has been introduced to millions of people who have never heard of him,” Sabato said. “I had to learn how to spell his name.”

“But the downside of his rollout is that millions almost immediately took a strong dislike to him for different reasons, something that apparently Schultz and his high-paid consultants aren’t noticing,” Sabato added.

Those consultants include Republican strategist and former MSNBC commentator Steve Schmidt and Bill Burton, a former advisor to President Barack Obama.

“The truth is the guy has announced for president, gotten an enormous amount of coverage and doesn’t appear to have support from anybody,” Sabato said.

Sabato and others said Schultz — who already was facing long odds of winning by saying that if he runs for the White House in 2020 it will be as an independent — hurt his chances during the week even further with a series of unforced errors. The former CEO of the giant coffee chain also left opportunities on the table, they said.

Tweet

Analysts interviewed by CNBC cited the fierce backlash Schultz sparked by committing to running as an independent, leading many Democrats to blast him for risking throwing the election to President Donald Trump by siphoning off enough would-be Democratic votes.

A day after announcing his potential bid Sunday, at a New York City event to launch his book, “From the Ground Up,” Schultz was met with a heckler who shouted, “Don’t help elect Trump, you egotistical, billionaire a—–!” The incident was widely shared on social media.

Analysts also noted Schultz’s own strong criticism of the Democratic Party, which they said risks alienating many voters that he likely would need to be able to win the election.

“It concerns me that so many voices within the Democratic Party are going so far to the left,” Schultz said earlier this week. “If I ran as a Democrat, I would have to say things in my heart I do not believe.”

Tweet

And analysts said his focus on a platform committed to lowering the national debt is likely to fall flat with voters this election cycle, as opposed to the 1992 election, when independent Ross Perot caught fire with a candidacy centered on that issue.

Then there is Schultz’s vast wealth, lack of political experience and his charisma — or what analysts said was his lack thereof.

A spokesman for Schultz did not respond to a request for comment.

Sabato said that Schultz and his advisors “didn’t seem to understand that most Americans aren’t looking for another white billionaire using bromides and buzzwords who has had zero experience in government.”

“We’ve already got one.”

Robert Shapiro, a Columbia University professor who previously chaired the Department of Political Science there, said he believed Schultz may have made a strategic error by floating the idea of his candidacy too “early” in the election cycle.

“If you’re running as an independent, you want to get attention, and you want to have voters see where you fit in the political space,” Shapiro said.

That is usually easiest, Shapiro said, when an independent has a good idea of who his opponents will be.

Tweet

While Trump is very likely to be the Republican Party’s nominee in 2020, the Democratic field is completely wide open and still might be so a full year from now.

“It does raise the question of if Schultz’s strategy would be better if he first ran in the [Democratic] party and then ran as an independent afterward” if he failed to secure the nomination, Shapiro said.

He and other analysts noted that it is possible for Schultz, or another independent, to garner a significant share of the popular vote. Perot got 19 percent in 1992, after actually leading in public opinion polls at some point that year.

But Shapiro pointed out that Perot received “no electoral votes” that year despite his relatively strong showing in the popular vote.

The Electoral College — not the popular vote — determines who wins the presidency.

It is possible for an independent to win electoral votes, as George Wallace did with 46 electoral votes in 1968. But if Schultz were to win enough votes to play the spoiler in 2020 and no candidate were able to score the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, the election would then be decided by the House of Representatives.

And “the House has Democrats and Republicans,” Shapiro said.

David Barker, professor of government and director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, said Schultz’s “rollout went quite poorly.” Schultz also seems to have overestimated the pool of voters who could be induced to vote for him, Barker said.

“The vast majority of ‘independents’ are simply ideologues who do not want to identify with their natural party because they believe that party sells out too much or is too interested with protecting its power rather than pursuing particular ideological goals,” Barker said.

“In other words, they don’t like the party because the party is not pure enough.”

But “the group of pure independents who are truly up for grabs is about 10 percent, and most of them are quite disengaged from politics so not necessarily voters,” Barker said.

Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science and communications studies at UCLA, said she thinks that if Schultz “could have a do-over” for his possible candidacy announcement, “he probably would take it.”

She said she was struck by the difference between how Schultz announced his potential run for the White House during an interview with “60 Minutes” last Sunday and how others announced their bids: Trump in 2015, and Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., this week.

“Those events” — the ones other than Schultz’s — “looked like presidential campaign events,” Vavreck said.

She noted that choices of the setting and production values, down to the music, used for the announcements of Trump, Harris and Booker seemed to reflect a serious level of planning by professional advisors around those candidates.

In contrast, she said, Shultz’s interview “didn’t have that professional feel … I don’t get the sense that he had a strategy or theme to his message worked out with a key core, a key group of people.”

“It doesn’t signal to me … that he’s put a lot of effort into thinking about the run,” Vavreck said.

She also was critical of Schultz’s messaging on “60 Minutes” and in interviews later in the week.

“Mostly what I heard from him was a reaction to Democrats and Republicans and everything they’re doing wrong,” Vavreck said.

She said that while it’s true that Congress ranks low in terms of public opinion, and many people have criticisms of the major parties, it’s a mistake to think that “I can go out and say those things and people will vote for me and I’ll win.”

Vavreck said presidential contenders have to have “a theme, a message.”

“You have to give people a reason to vote for you, to be one of your team. Not just ‘I’m that guy,’” she said. “People want to be with you for a cause. Not just because you’re not something else.”

Sabato, of the University of Virginia, said Schultz’s failure to lay out a compelling message, or “a crusade … that matters to people” and would get them to vote for him, indicates what is motivating Schultz to run as an independent.

“It’s a vanity project, and that’s his giant mistake,” Sabato said. “Here’s what surprised me, is that with all of that money and all of that time and all of those high-priced consultants, he comes on ’60 Minutes’ and he talks about the debt? He thinks that’s going to win him the presidency?”

Sabato said that a number of his political science students “didn’t even know about him,” even after the “60 Minutes” interview.

Those students who did know Schultz were underwhelmed.

“This one young lady said, ‘He left me cold. Because there was nothing there,’” Sabato recalled.

— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Brian Schwartz

“Robots will be able to do everything better than us. … I mean all of us,” said Elon Musk in 2017.

It is too early to know whether Musk is right, but, as GeekWire points out, a handful of Super Bowl commercials are trying to make humans feel a little better about the abilities of our robot counterparts.

An ad for Michelob Ultra set to run Super Bowl Sunday starts with human runners being left in the dust by a running robot, flesh and blood golfers shocked by a golfing robot, live boxers startled by a robot boxer’s strength and people in a spin class who can’t keep up with their robot teacher.

But then…cut to a titanium robot sadly peering in the window of a bar while humans enjoy beer and each other’s company.

“It’s only worth it, if you can enjoy it” flashes across the screen, as the robot seems dejected, excluded and sad.

In a Pringles Super Bowl commercial, two young men stack potato chips in different flavor combinations and wonder how many different stacks are possible. A nearby smart speaker voice assistant knows the answer immediately.

But then the voice assistant rues that it will never eat one.

“Sadly, I’ll never know the joy of tasting any,” the robotic voice says. “I have no hands to stack with. No mouth to taste with. No soul to feel with.…”

In TurboTax’s Super Bowl commercial, viewers meet “RoboChild.” The small robot with a child’s face wakes his human dad because he wants a 3 a.m. snack.

RoboChild wants a meal that sounds very much like something AI would come up with by running foodie data through an algorithm: a kale salad with chicken and guac (“I know guac’s extra,” monotones RoboChild).

“You’re not hungry, you don’t eat,” the dad tells RoboChild.

“The world isn’t ready for you yet. Your time will come,” the father says, and tells RoboChild he loves him.

“I love you, too, papa,” RoboChild says. “If I know what love is.”

Though meant for a laugh, the commercials echo a point expressed by the so-called “oracle of AI,” Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Chinese venture capital firm Sinovation Ventures and author of “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order.”

“I believe [AI] is going to change the world more than anything in the history of mankind. More than electricity,” Lee told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in January.

But Lee said there are capabilities humans have that robots will not anytime soon: “I believe in the sanctity of our soul. I believe there is a lot of things about us that we don’t understand. I believe there’s a lot of love and compassion that is not explainable in terms of neural networks and computation algorithms.”

Make that love, compassion and enjoying beer and potato chips.

See also:

Elon Musk: ‘Robots will be able to do everything better than us’

The ‘Oracle of A.I.’: These 4 kinds of jobs won’t be replaced by robots

3 predictions for the future, according to billionaire tech titan Elon Musk

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After January’s strong jobs report calmed some recession fears, investors will be picking through the next wave of earnings reports and economic data for clues on just how much the U.S. economy could be slowing.

Dozens of earnings, from companies like Alphabet, Disney and Eli Lily, report in the week ahead, and there are just a few economic reports like trade data and ISM services on Tuesday. Investors will also be watching the outcome of Treasury auctions for $84 billion in Treasury notes and bonds Tuesday through Thursday, after the Fed’s dovish tone helped put a lid on interest rates in the past week.

Nearly half the S&P 500 companies had reported for the fourth quarter by Friday morning, and 71 percent beat earnings estimates, while 62 percent have beaten revenue estimates. But earnings growth forecasts for the first quarter continue to decline as more companies report, and they are currently barely breaking even at under 1 percent growth, versus the 15 percent growth in the fourth quarter, according to Refinitiv.

“Granted the more we hear from companies, and particularly in terms of their guidance and projections on revenues, things can slowly change. The first thing companies do is they stop spending money. Cap spending slows down, and if revenue growth does not pick up, they let people go. This is still wait and see,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.

Krosby said the 304,000 jobs added in January did ease some concerns about a slowing economy, as did a stronger than expected ISM manufacturing report Friday. But the view of the first quarter is still unclear, as many economic reports were missed during the government shutdown. Economists expect growth in the first quarter of just above 2 percent, after growth of about 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter.

Stocks closed out January with a sharp gain on Thursday, and started February on Friday on a flattish note. The S&P 500 has rebounded about 15 percent from its Dec. 24 closing low. Last month’s 7.9 percent gain was the best performance for January in more than 30 years.

The old Wall Street adage says ‘so goes January, so goes the year.’ If that holds, stocks could finish 2019 higher. But February is another story, and on average, it is a flat month for the S&P 500.

“The tug of war that you saw in the market, that was going on in the last half of last year is playing out in the data. Some of the data is a bit lower, but some of the economic surprises are picking up to the upside rather than downside,” said Krosby.

Peter Boockvar, chief investment strategist at Bleakley Advisory Group, said the ISM may have improved but it reflected very low exports and flat backlogs, even though there was a snap back in new orders.

“I would fade the jobs report,” said Boockvar, noting the level of growth may have been inflated by government workers taking on part-time jobs during the government shutdown.

Boocvkar said the jobs report also looked strong on the surface, but he’s concerned the unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent from 3.9 percent.

“The question of whether we go into a recession or not is how does the stock market affect confidence?” Boockvar said. Confidence readings in the past week were low, and consumer sentiment Friday was its lowest since before President Donald Trump took office.

Krosby said stocks could test recent lows or put in a higher low. If there’s a big selloff, “That would not necessarily mean it was a clue a recession is coming. It’s just a normal testing mechanism,” she said.

The Fed removed a big concern from the markets in the past week, when its post-meeting statement and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s briefing tilted dovish, assuring markets the Fed would pause in its interest rate hiking. Investors had feared the Fed would hurt the softening economy with its rate hikes. Now, the biggest fears are about the trade war between the U.S. and China and slowing Chinese growth.

The jobs report, and the ISM manufacturing data were also important because the lack of data during the government’s 35 day shutdown has left gaps in the economic picture.

“This is really a sign the Fed stole the thunder from the economic data. By saying they’re patient plasters over any kind of economic data in the near term, and I suspect the near term lasts through the first quarter because of the government shutdown, the weather, weak GDP,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex.

Chandler said the markets will be hanging on any news on the trade talks with China. “Even if it’s not the all encompassing trade deal we were promised, it’s a return to where we were before with China promising to buy energy and farm products. We’ll continue to have some kind of talks with the China, like we had under Obama and Bush,” said Chandler.

Monday

Earnings: Alphabet, Clorox, Gilead Sciences, Ryanair, Sysco, Legg Mason, Leggett and Platt, Seagate Technology, Beazer Homes, Hartford Financial, ON Semiconductor

10:00 a.m. Factory orders
2:00 p.m. Senior loan officer survey 7:30 p.m. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester

Tuesday

Earnings: BP, Disney, Archer Daniels Midland, Viacom, Becton Dickenson, Genworth Financial, Owens-Illinois, Vertex, Plains All American, Skyworks Solutions, Chubb, Suncor, Unum, Oaktree Capital, Pitney Bowes, Tableau Software, Torchmark, Snap, Allstate, The Container Store, Estee Lauder, Ralph Lauren

8:30 a.m. International trade

9:45 a.m. Services PMI 10:00 a.m. ISM nonmanufacturing

1:00 p.m. $38 billion 3-year note auction

Wednesday

Earnings: General Motors, Eli Lilly, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Fireeye, Zynga, Sonos, Valvoline, Humana, Cognizant Tech, Cummins, First Data, Regeneron, Spotify, Take Two Interactive, Carlyle Group, Netgear, Boston Scientific, BNP Paribas, GlaxoSmithkline, Daimler, Toyota, O’Reilly Automotive, Metlife, Snap

8:30 a.m. Productivity and costs

1:00 p.m. $27 billion 10-year note auction

7:00 p.m. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at town hall with educators

Thursday

Earnings: Twitter, News Corp, Kellogg, Marathon, Expedia, Mohawk, Western Union, Intercontinental Exchange, Sanofi, Total, Yum Brands, Expedia, IAC/Interactive, Mattel, WR Grace, Dunkin Brands, Fiserv, Tapestry, Tyson Foods, Andeavor Logistics, Virtu Financial, Hain Celestial, Sealed Air, Triumph Group, Cardinal Health, S&P Global, Penske Auto Group, Sealed Air, Fiat Chrysler

8:30 a.m. Initial unemployment claims

1:00 p.m. $19 billion 30-year bond auction

3:00 p.m. Consumer credit

7:30 p.m. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard

Friday

Earnings: Arconic, Hasbro, Cleveland-Cliffs, Ventas, Philips 66, Buckeye Partners, Exelon

10:0 a.m. Wholesale trade

After January’s strong jobs report calmed some recession fears, investors will be picking through the next wave of earnings reports and economic data for clues on just how much the U.S. economy could be slowing.

Dozens of earnings, from companies like Alphabet, Disney and Eli Lily, report in the week ahead, and there are just a few economic reports like trade data and ISM services on Tuesday. Investors will also be watching the outcome of Treasury auctions for $84 billion in Treasury notes and bonds Tuesday through Thursday, after the Fed’s dovish tone helped put a lid on interest rates in the past week.

Nearly half the S&P 500 companies had reported for the fourth quarter by Friday morning, and 71 percent beat earnings estimates, while 62 percent have beaten revenue estimates. But earnings growth forecasts for the first quarter continue to decline as more companies report, and they are currently barely breaking even at under 1 percent growth, versus the 15 percent growth in the fourth quarter, according to Refinitiv.

“Granted the more we hear from companies, and particularly in terms of their guidance and projections on revenues, things can slowly change. The first thing companies do is they stop spending money. Cap spending slows down, and if revenue growth does not pick up, they let people go. This is still wait and see,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.

Krosby said the 304,000 jobs added in January did ease some concerns about a slowing economy, as did a stronger than expected ISM manufacturing report Friday. But the view of the first quarter is still unclear, as many economic reports were missed during the government shutdown. Economists expect growth in the first quarter of just above 2 percent, after growth of about 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter.

Stocks closed out January with a sharp gain on Thursday, and started February on Friday on a flattish note. The S&P 500 has rebounded about 15 percent from its Dec. 24 closing low. Last month’s 7.9 percent gain was the best performance for January in more than 30 years.

The old Wall Street adage says ‘so goes January, so goes the year.’ If that holds, stocks could finish 2019 higher. But February is another story, and on average, it is a flat month for the S&P 500.

“The tug of war that you saw in the market, that was going on in the last half of last year is playing out in the data. Some of the data is a bit lower, but some of the economic surprises are picking up to the upside rather than downside,” said Krosby.

Peter Boockvar, chief investment strategist at Bleakley Advisory Group, said the ISM may have improved but it reflected very low exports and flat backlogs, even though there was a snap back in new orders.

“I would fade the jobs report,” said Boockvar, noting the level of growth may have been inflated by government workers taking on part-time jobs during the government shutdown.

Boocvkar said the jobs report also looked strong on the surface, but he’s concerned the unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent from 3.9 percent.

“The question of whether we go into a recession or not is how does the stock market affect confidence?” Boockvar said. Confidence readings in the past week were low, and consumer sentiment Friday was its lowest since before President Donald Trump took office.

Krosby said stocks could test recent lows or put in a higher low. If there’s a big selloff, “That would not necessarily mean it was a clue a recession is coming. It’s just a normal testing mechanism,” she said.

The Fed removed a big concern from the markets in the past week, when its post-meeting statement and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s briefing tilted dovish, assuring markets the Fed would pause in its interest rate hiking. Investors had feared the Fed would hurt the softening economy with its rate hikes. Now, the biggest fears are about the trade war between the U.S. and China and slowing Chinese growth.

The jobs report, and the ISM manufacturing data were also important because the lack of data during the government’s 35 day shutdown has left gaps in the economic picture.

“This is really a sign the Fed stole the thunder from the economic data. By saying they’re patient plasters over any kind of economic data in the near term, and I suspect the near term lasts through the first quarter because of the government shutdown, the weather, weak GDP,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex.

Chandler said the markets will be hanging on any news on the trade talks with China. “Even if it’s not the all encompassing trade deal we were promised, it’s a return to where we were before with China promising to buy energy and farm products. We’ll continue to have some kind of talks with the China, like we had under Obama and Bush,” said Chandler.

Monday

Earnings: Alphabet, Clorox, Gilead Sciences, Ryanair, Sysco, Legg Mason, Leggett and Platt, Seagate Technology, Beazer Homes, Hartford Financial, ON Semiconductor

10:00 a.m. Factory orders
2:00 p.m. Senior loan officer survey 7:30 p.m. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester

Tuesday

Earnings: BP, Disney, Archer Daniels Midland, Viacom, Becton Dickenson, Genworth Financial, Owens-Illinois, Vertex, Plains All American, Skyworks Solutions, Chubb, Suncor, Unum, Oaktree Capital, Pitney Bowes, Tableau Software, Torchmark, Snap, Allstate, The Container Store, Estee Lauder, Ralph Lauren

8:30 a.m. International trade

9:45 a.m. Services PMI 10:00 a.m. ISM nonmanufacturing

1:00 p.m. $38 billion 3-year note auction

Wednesday

Earnings: General Motors, Eli Lilly, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Fireeye, Zynga, Sonos, Valvoline, Humana, Cognizant Tech, Cummins, First Data, Regeneron, Spotify, Take Two Interactive, Carlyle Group, Netgear, Boston Scientific, BNP Paribas, GlaxoSmithkline, Daimler, Toyota, O’Reilly Automotive, Metlife, Snap

8:30 a.m. Productivity and costs

1:00 p.m. $27 billion 10-year note auction

7:00 p.m. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell at town hall with educators

Thursday

Earnings: Twitter, News Corp, Kellogg, Marathon, Expedia, Mohawk, Western Union, Intercontinental Exchange, Sanofi, Total, Yum Brands, Expedia, IAC/Interactive, Mattel, WR Grace, Dunkin Brands, Fiserv, Tapestry, Tyson Foods, Andeavor Logistics, Virtu Financial, Hain Celestial, Sealed Air, Triumph Group, Cardinal Health, S&P Global, Penske Auto Group, Sealed Air, Fiat Chrysler

8:30 a.m. Initial unemployment claims

1:00 p.m. $19 billion 30-year bond auction

3:00 p.m. Consumer credit

7:30 p.m. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard

Friday

Earnings: Arconic, Hasbro, Cleveland-Cliffs, Ventas, Philips 66, Buckeye Partners, Exelon

10:0 a.m. Wholesale trade

When we think of football players, names like that of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady or Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald often come to mind — household names with multi-million-dollar contracts and lucrative endorsements with sportswear companies and other brands.

But when these two players face off at Super Bowl LIII on Feb. 3, they’ll be the exception rather than the rule.

That’s because they are among the NFL’s highest-paid players. Brady’s average annual salary is $15 million, while Donald’s tops $22 million, according to contract data from Spotrac. Factor in bonuses as well as ad deals and each earned more than $29 million in the past year, according to Forbes.

But the majority of players will never see a payout anywhere near those. For every high earner there are hundreds making the league minimum, which for an NFL player is, of course, still far more than the average worker’s.

The minimum annual salary for a rookie active roster player with a one-year contract is $480,000, according to the collective bargaining agreement the NFL signed in 2011 with the NFL Players Association, which will be in effect until 2020.

That minimum increases for each year a player spends in the NFL. A player with three years’ experience would command a salary equal to at least $705,000, while players with seven to nine years on the field must be paid at least $915,000.

That’s great news for those lucky enough to last that long in the NFL, but many won’t ring in a seventh year on the job. The average career length is less than three years, meaning most players never advance beyond the lower rungs of that payment ladder.

Of course, $480,000 is by no means a poor wage — it just isn’t quite the seven-digit figure many football fans might expect.

When you factor in all the players earning these minimum salaries, along with the payouts of a team’s golden boy, you’ll find that the average NFL salary was only about $2.7 million in 2017, according to The L.A. Times. That’s less than three-quarters of the average $4 million earnings of a major league baseball player and less than half the typical wage of NBA players, who earn about $7.1 million on average.

But even that average salary is probably too high to accurately reflect what an everyman in the NFL makes in a year, thanks to outliers like Donald and Brady pulling the average up with their outsize earnings. The median salary for all NFL players is actually about $860,000, much closer to those sums outlined in the sport’s minimum payment guidelines, according to The Houston Chronicle.

Quarterbacks tend to fare the best in terms of payouts — their position’s average salary is $5.76 million and the median wage is $1.1 million, according to The Houston Chronicle. Running backs, on the other hand, can expect an average salary of about $1 million and a median wage of only $630,000.

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The Rams and the Patriots face off in Super Bowl LIII, which kicks off on Sunday at 6:30 P.M. Eastern.

For fun, I asked Apple‘s Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Microsoft Cortana who will win.

The responses are pretty funny, and while the Patriots are favored, at least Google picks the underdog.

Here’s what each digital assistant said:

“The odds favor the Patriots over the Rams by 2.5 points.”

“As much as I want the Rams to win, you can never count out the New England Patriots. My prediction? The Patriots will be taking home the Vince Lombardi trophy. And Tom Brady will need to use his other hand to take home that sixth Super Bowl ring.”

“On Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time. The Patriots face the Rams in the Super Bowl. My sources are decidedly favoring the Patriots.”

Google has a few responses.

“I like teams associated with animals, so I’ll take the Rams. But the Patriots do have the goat in Tom Brady, so I guess we’ll see what happens.” Editor’s Note: Goat is short for “greatest of all time.”

“The Patriots are favored to win, and I can’t help but root for the underdog, so I’ll b echeering for the Rams.”

“The Rams are the only pro football franchise to win Championships in 3 different cities, Cleveland, Los Angeles and St. Louis. It’s hard not to root for a team that has brought joy to so many places.”