Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — Today’s focus is on America’s consumer. October retail sales data will be available within an hour to two hours of earnings from Walmart (NYSE) and Home Depot (NYSE:). (NYSE:). Elon Musk still sells Tesla stock (NASDAQ:), but Michael Burry seems to have stopped. International Energy Agency acknowledges the trend towards oil and sterling surges following strong U.K. labor figures that put back a December rate increase. What you need to know for financial markets Tuesday, 16 November.

1. Retail day

Is the U.S. consumer sentiment strong heading into the holidays season? We’ll find out at 8:30 AM ET (1330 GMT), when retail sales data for October are reported. Analysts predict a 1.2% increase in September sales, the largest monthly gain since March when most lockdown restrictions were lifted by the U.S.

There’s an implicit tension between that forecast and the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, which fell to a 10-year low at the start of this month. This can partly be explained by rising prices, which account for a large portion of retail sales growth. Tyson Foods (NYSE:) Monday was the latest announcement by a company that lowers input prices are being passed on to its customers.

The nationwide data should reflect earnings at Walmart and Home Depot which both report in the early morning.

2. Musk continues to sell, but Burry isn’t buying it.

Late in the afternoon filings reveal that Elon Musk kept selling Tesla stock. Following the exercise of options to acquire 2.1million shares at $6.24 each, Musk purchased 934,091 shares. The total value was approximately $930 million.

The difference in exercise price and market value is subject to income tax.

Premarket, Tesla stock dropped 1.2% However, there’s one less person selling the stock – Michael Burry of ‘The Big Short’ fame, whose Scion Capital hedge fund has closed its short position on both Tesla and Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment, apparently after tiring of ‘being right too early’.

3. Stocks set for flat opening after Biden-Xi call

The U.S. stock market is set to open in a flat fashion again, after Monday’s disappointing day. Stocks were lost for direction on Monday. Although there was some good mood music from President Joe Biden’s telephone conversation with Xi Jinping, it did not contain any hard news.

They were actually flat by 6:15 am ET. Contracts and were also down less than 0.1% at that time.

Walmart and Home Depot are not the only stocks that could be on your radar. NetEase is a Chinese gaming company. The Wall Street Journal reports that it has renewed plans for an IPO. The company’s earnings fell somewhat short of expectations but revenue came in ahead of forecasts.

4. Crypto crashes upon realization of infrastructure bill reporting requirements

As the markets digested the potential implications of the bill’s infrastructure clause, which could lead to heavy reporting on transfer and receipt of these funds, cryptocurrencies were sold across the board.

This bill requires that all digital asset transactions exceeding $10,000 in value must be reported to IRS. It will raise administrative costs for many cryptocurrency brokerages and inhibit the trading of illicit goods or services, which generates the majority of crypto demand.

Bitcoin fell 8.6% to $60.284 at 06:25 ET. It had previously fallen as low $58,655. Was down 10% and 14% respectively, while it was down 9.2%.

Back in the world of real currencies, sterling perked up after strong U.K. labor market data put the prospect of a rate hike at the Bank of England’s next meeting back on the agenda.

5. Oil prices rise in IEA’s report. API inventories due

Overnight, crude oil prices rose despite new indications suggesting that global supply and demand balance may be shifting in consumers favor.

According to the International Energy Agency, global oil supplies will rise an average 1.5 million barrels per day in the last two months of 2018, thanks to a 400,000-barrel-per-day increase of U.S. production. It also assumes that OPEC and its allies pump the volumes that they have promised to pump – despite the bloc missing its targets for the last two months.

At 6:25 am ET, January’s futures contract was at $80.13/barrel, up 0.5%, and at $82.56/barrel, up 0.6%. The American Petroleum Institute’s weekly inventory data are due at 4:30 PM ET, as usual.