Retail Sales, UnitedHealth Results, Big Bank Earnings: 3 Things to Watch

By Liz Moyer

Investing.com -- Stocks staged a huge turnaround after falling sharply early in the day on the heels of a report showing inflation ran hotter than expected in September.

The Dow reclaimed those losses and shot up more than 900 points after that. All three indexes were in the green in the final 45 minutes of trading for Thursday.

On Friday, a slew of big bank earnings will give investors a sense for what rising interest rates and inflation are doing to the nation's biggest lenders, as well as to prominent Wall Street trading firms.

Thursday's consumer price index report almost seals the decision for the Federal Reserve when it meets next month, leaving little reason to back off of its aggressive rate increases on its mission to cool inflation. The meeting minutes from its September meeting showed that policymakers are determined to be as aggressive as possible, viewing the risk of doing too much being lower than the risk of doing too little.

Here are three things that could affect markets tomorrow:

1. Retail sales

Retail sales data for September are due out at 8:30 ET (12:30 GMT). Analysts expect the month-over-month gain to be 0.2%. 

2. UnitedHealth earnings

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (NYSE:UNH) is expected to report earnings of $5.43 a share on revenue of $80.5 billion.

3. Bank earnings

A bunch of big banks roll out their earnings on Friday. JPMorgan Chase&Co (NYSE:JPM) is expected to report EPS of $2.92 on revenue of $32.1 billion. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) is expected to report earnings of $1.52 a share on revenue of $13.2 billion. Wells Fargo &Company (NYSE:WFC) is expected to report EPS of $1.10 on revenue of $18.7 billion.