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Investing.com — Stocks were choppy on Monday ahead of a bunch of earnings reports from major retailers as investors awaited clues for the Federal Reserve’s next move on interest rates.
Last week’s inflation report for October indicated prices are coming down from their June peak. That could be a sign the Fed is getting ready to ease the aggressive pace of rate hikes it has been on to tame inflation. Slowing the pace of rate hikes is something Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard suggested in comments on Monday.
Brainard told Bloomberg News “it will probably be appropriate soon to move to a slower pace of rate increases.”
That helped boost stocks, which had been trading lower before she spoke.
Data on retail sales for October comes out Wednesday. Analysts expect sales to rise 1% from the prior month, when sales were flat.
Walmart is scheduled to report earnings on Tuesday, along with Home Depot . Target (NYSE:TGT) follows on Wednesday. Analysts will be watching trends in same store sales and listening for what executives say about the holiday sales season.
Here are three things that could affect markets tomorrow;
1. Producer prices
The producer price index for October is due out at 8:30 ET (13:30 GMT). Analysts expect core PPI to rise 7.2%, same as the previous month, on an annualized basis, and core PPI to rise 0.3% from September. On a topline basis, analysts expect annual PPI to rise 8.3%, a slower pace than September, and 0.4% for the month.
2. Walmart earnings
The biggest U.S. retailer Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT) is expected to report earnings per share of $1.32 on revenue of $147.6 billion.
3. Home Depot earnings
Home Depot Inc (NYSE:HD), the home goods and hardware retailer, is expected to report earnings per share of $4.12 on revenue of $37.9B.
