U.S. Stocks Wobble After Retail Earnings Beat Expectations

By Liz Moyer 

Investing.com -- U.S. stocks wobbled after better than expected earnings from Walmart and Home Depot couldn’t shake worries about an economic slowdown.

At 10:25 ET (14:25 GMT) the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 79 points, or 0.2%, while the S&P 500 was down 0.2% and the NASDAQ Composite dipped 0.8%.

This is a big week for retail earnings and retail sales data, and investors are closely watching both for clues on the direction of the economy.

Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT), the biggest U.S. retailer, turned in a surprisingly strong report, with profit that didn’t fall as much as feared. It reiterated its outlook for the rest of the year. Inflation is forcing shoppers to make tradeoffs and opt for lower-priced items, and that trend continues, though falling gasoline prices is easing some concerns about consumer spending. Walmart shares rose 5.6%.

Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) also beat expectations and maintained its outlook after same-store sales beat expectations. Its shares rose 3%.

Target (NYSE:TGT) is scheduled to report earnings early Wednesday.

This is also a big week for housing data, amid a cooling off of the real estate and home building sector. Housing starts in July fell to 1.45 million annualized, a bigger drop than expected and the lowest since last year. Analysts had been looking for 1.54 million.

Oil was flat. Crude Oil WTI Futures traded around $89.50 a barrel, while Brent Oil Futures crude was around $95.08 a barrel. Gold Futures fell 0.4% to $1,790.