The Delta variant is making American buyers nervous. But are they still spending?

What’s happening: Investors and economists are watching closely for signs of slowing spending after consumer confidence plummets to its lowest level in nearly a decade in latest University of Michigan survey . Crucial data arrives this week, with revenue from Walmart and Target (TGT)and the latest dispatch on retail sales in the United States.

Walmart (WMT) sent conflicting messages on Tuesday. Profits exceeded Wall Street estimates, as sales at stores open for at least a year rose more than 5% as the retailer continued to strengthen its grocery business. The company has also raised its revenue forecast for the year, with sales in the United States now expected to increase between 5% and 6%. In May, Walmart said sales growth would be in the “low digits.”

Home Depot shares are also down pre-market, falling more than 3% after the company said the home improvement boom that boosted its business during the pandemic could run out of steam.

The company said comparable sales increased 4.5%. This is much slower growth than at the same time last year, when the metric jumped over 20%.

US retail sales for July, due later Tuesday, could also be of concern. Economists polled by Reuters predict retail sales fell 0.2% after rising 0.6% in June.

It might help: the picture of spending is clearly cloudy. But Cowen analysts are touting at least one bright spot. They point out that as of July, about 39 million U.S. households began receiving monthly bank deposits – the result of the enhanced child tax credit that was part of President Joe’s $ 1.9 billion stimulus package. Biden.

“A huge change in policy, this is a universal basic income for low and middle income parents,” Cowen’s team said in a recent research report. The investment bank thinks the extra money could help increase spending.

Chinese tech stocks dip again as regulators unveil new rules

New regulatory measures targeting private companies in China are shaking tech stocks in Asia again.

The latest: China’s biggest tech companies lost more than $ 50 billion in market value on Tuesday after Beijing proposed sweeping new rules to further tackle anti-competitive behavior by large internet companies, my CNN colleague reports Business Laura He.

The State Administration for Market Regulation, which has spearheaded the government’s antitrust campaign against Big Tech, has said it will ban traders from falsifying statistics or information about their orders, sales, and customer reviews. users to mislead customers. They would also be prohibited from fabricating consumer opinions to damage the reputation of their rivals.

Other targeted practices include the exploitation of data or algorithms to redirect competitor’s web traffic and the creation of barriers that would prevent customers from installing or running competing services.

The regulator has also proposed to ban a practice known as “pick one in two,” in which companies enter into exclusive deals with merchants that prevent them from selling on competing e-commerce platforms. SAMR investigated Alibaba into such issues earlier this year, ending up slapping the company with a record penalty of $ 2.8 billion.

SAMR, which was established in 2018, has dramatically stepped up antitrust scrutiny of the country’s tech champions since late last year, when President Xi Jinping called for curbing the “disorderly expansion” of private capital.

Afghanistan faces an uncertain future. Its economy too

See here: In 2020, about 90% of Afghans were living below the government-set poverty line of $ 2 a day, according to a Congressional Research Service report released in June.

A growing humanitarian crisis and instability as the Taliban strive to consolidate their power is only expected to make matters worse.

“The country is deeply divided with many factions opposed to Taliban control, leaving civil war and new regional instability a distinct possibility,” risk consultancy firm Verisk Maplecroft said in a report released this week.

Vast reserves of iron, copper and gold are spread across the country. There is also lithium, an essential mineral in the batteries that power electric vehicles.

However, it is not easy to get these resources out of the ground. Howard Klein, partner of RK Equity, which advises investors on lithium, said developers will want to avoid an increasingly hostile environment. There is speculation that China, which dominates rare earth mineral mining, might try to get started, but Klein believes Beijing is more likely to prioritize other regions first.

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US retail sales for July at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Also today: Fed Chairman Jerome Powell attends a town hall at 1:30 p.m. ET.