5 things you should know before the stock market opens on Tuesday, August 13

Here are five important things investors need to know at the start of the trading day:

The S&P500 and the Nasdaq-Composite were able to maintain their upward momentum in Monday trading. The S&P 500 closed unchanged, up just 0.23 points, at 5,344.39, after swinging between gains and losses all day. The Nasdaq, meanwhile, gained 0.21%, thanks to NVIDIA Increase of 4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was the outlier, losing 140 points, or 0.36%. Investors will be keeping an eye on the Producer Price Index – a measure of wholesale prices, released at 8:30 a.m. ET. A consensus estimate for the Dow Jones is for a monthly increase of 0.2% for July, in line with the previous month’s reading. Follow the latest market updates.

Home Depot sparked a wave of retail earnings on Tuesday by warning of cautious consumers. The home improvement retailer beat quarterly expectations when it reported earnings before the market close, but also warned that sales in the second half of the year will be weaker than expected. The company expects full-year comparable sales to fall 3 percent to 4 percent from a year ago, worse than the 1 percent decline it had previously forecast. “Professionals are telling us that for the first time, their customers are not just delaying payments because of higher financing costs,” Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail told CNBC. “They are delaying payments because they feel the economy is more uncertain.”

Consumers are starting to feel more optimistic about inflation. In fact, the New York Fed’s consumer expectations survey put the inflation forecast for the next three years at 2.3%, down 0.6 percentage points from the June forecast and the lowest level in the survey’s history, which goes back to June 2013. Put another way, respondents expect inflation to remain high next year but then expect it to decline. Meanwhile, household spending is expected to rise 4.9%, down 0.2 percentage points from June and the lowest since April 2021, when the recent rise in inflation roughly began, according to the survey.

Commodity prices have plunged over the past month, even as U.S. stocks have recouped many of their recent losses. Crude oil futures have fallen 14 percent from July 5 to August 5, and copper futures have lost nearly 12 percent over the past month. “As far as commodities go, the entire asset class is coming under pressure,” Rob Ginsberg, managing director of Wolfe Research, wrote in a research note Friday. These declines could be a sign of underlying weakness in the global economy, as commodities, and copper in particular, are often seen as a signal of what is likely to happen to the economy, said Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities.

Macy’s The plan to close about 150 of its namesake stores in the coming years will unleash a wave of change at malls. Its stores are anchor points with massive footprints between 18,500 and 20,000 square feet that are often difficult to fill with another major retailer. Some malls are turning them into smaller retail spaces, others are getting creative about how to fill the gaps. At former Macy’s locations that have already closed, malls have added apartments, demolished the building for an entirely new development or converted the spaces into warehouses, grocery stores, movie theaters and healthcare facilities. “It’s a collective challenge to get people off the couch and out of the house,” said Adam Tritt, chief development officer for Brookfield Properties’ U.S. retail portfolio. Read more about the upcoming changes at malls here.

— CNBC’s Brian Evans, Melissa Repko, Spencer Kimball and Jeff Cox contributed to this report.

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