Retail Earnings Week: Walmart Leads a Big-Box Lineup as Markets Watch Data and Inflation

Markets head into a relatively quiet five-day stretch focused on earnings from Walmart and other big-box retailers (WMT, BABA, ROST, DE on Thursday; BJ on Friday) after Baidu kicks off the week with AI cloud revenue. The data calendar features Tuesday’s industrial production and manufacturing data and housing starts, Wednesday’s Fed minutes, and Friday’s S&P Global US manufacturing PMI. Investors are weighing inflation dynamics and consumer sentiment, which cooled in August, while AI capital expenditure and energy/dollar factors add to macro headwinds. Overall, last week’s mixed moves keep markets cautious as earnings and data unfold.