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Hello. I'm Josh Mitchell, here to prepare you for Tuesday's market action.

Two retail giants are set to report, offering a peek into the health of U.S. consumers. Walmart and Lowe's will both issue results before the market open.

Recent data, including retail-sales figures, have pointed to economic strength that could ease pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates fast.

Geopolitical tensions weighed on global stocks Tuesday. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a revised and expanded nuclear doctrine, Russia's TASS news agency reported, after the Biden administration approved Ukraine's use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles inside Russia.

On Monday , the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 rose, while the Dow industrials slipped.

Follow our live coverage throughout the day for the latest news affecting markets.

Meanwhile, the Journal's Vicky Ge Huang and Matt Wirz report on why investors are unfazed as more Americans fall behind on auto loans.

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Stocks to Watch

Alphabet : Google's parent company is among the tech players being targeted by top antitrust officials in a last effort from the Biden administration to rein in the industry, The Wall Street Journal reported .

Blackstone : The private-equity company is nearing a deal for closely held sandwich chain Jersey Mike's Subs, the WSJ reported .

Super Micro Computer : The AI server maker submitted a plan to allow it to continue to trade on the Nasdaq. Shares, which rose Monday on expectations of the move, jumped 39% premarket.

Trump Media & Technology : Shares of Donald Trump's social-media company fell about 6% premarket. They had jumped 16% Monday on a report that it was in advanced talks to acquire cryptocurrency company Bakkt.

Amcor , Berry : Packaging company Amcor said it will buy peer Berry in an all-stock deal. Shares of Berry, which ended Monday with a market value of about $7.7 billion, rose 7% ahead of the opening bell.

Lowe's and Walmart are among the companies due to report earnings before markets open.

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Wall Street Is Bullish on Car Loans Despite Rising Delinquencies

By Vicky Ge Huang and Matt Wirz

More Americans are falling behind on their car payments. Wall Street isn't worried.

Investors are snapping up bonds tied to car loans, betting that a strong U.S. economy will keep rising delinquency rates in check. Sales of bonds backed by the riskiest auto loans to subprime borrowers hit nearly $40 billion this year through October, up 17% from all of 2023, according to data from JPMorgan Chase.

"We've seen deals almost 20 times oversubscribed," said Nicholas Tripodes, a senior portfolio manager at investment firm Federated Hermes. This level of interest shows how strong demand has been among investors for such debt.

Keep reading . Charting the Markets

The traditional energy industry has performed slightly better under Democrats, who tend to favor roadblocks on new supply. Those roadblocks lead to less capital spending and higher oil prices and damage small producers more than giants, writes Heard on the Street columnist Jinjoo Lee .

It should be a good time to lend money to people. Interest rates on credit cards are high, and risks are subsiding. Yet there is a missing ingredient: borrowers. Americans are hardly gorging on debt right now, writes Heard on the Street columnist Telis Demos .

MicroStrategy has bought about $4.6 billion of bitcoin -the first fruits of a huge new fundraising plan, and its largest bitcoin purchase since it first started acquiring the cryptocurrency more than four years ago. Last month, the company unveiled an audacious plan to raise $42 billion of capital, half in stock and half through bonds, over three years to buy bitcoin.

Must Reads

Donald Trump Jr. is going all-in on the anti-woke economy. The powerful adviser to the president-elect is joining venture-capital firm 1789 to invest in companies espousing conservative values, bringing new attention to a financial movement that hasn't taken off.

Spirit became the largest U.S. passenger airline to go bankrupt in more than a decade on Monday. It reflects a reversal of fortunes for a carrier that helped make travel more affordable.

The Biden administration's top antitrust officials plan to take more shots at the tech industry before leaving office, in a race to cap four years of aggressive enforcement .

More:

We Can't Give Up Paper Checks, and That's a Gold Mine for Scammers Makers of Weight-Loss Drugs Want Your Employer to Pay for Them Big Cities Take Up Fight Against Algorithm-Based Rents This Day in Markets On this day in 1792: In the same room where the Declaration of Independence was adopted 16 years earlier, the Insurance Co. of North America held its initial public offering at $10 a share. More than 660 investors signed up for shares. The INA is now part of Chubb. WSJ's Take On the Week Podcast

Take On the Week is back.

On the first episode of the newly relaunched podcast, Gunjan Banerji and Telis Demos dig into the latest on the Trump trade, the crypto rally and what coming retail earnings could signal about American consumers.

Later in the show, Dominic Rizzo of T. Rowe Price joins to chat about Nvidia and the artificial-intelligence trade.

Listen Now Beyond the Newsroom

Buy Side from WSJ: Unique Gifts for Men Who Have Everything

About Us

We want to be the first place you go to get ready for the opening bell every day. This newsletter was written by Josh Mitchell ( @JMitchellWSJ ) in London.

This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 19, 2024 06:38 ET (11:38 GMT)

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