5 things you need to know before the stock market opens on Wednesday November 17th

Here are the key news, trends and analysis investors need to start their trading day:

US stock futures were relatively flat on Wednesday, a day after robust retail gains propelled Wall Street. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended Tuesday just before their November 8 highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, helped by Home Depot’s 5.7% rise, also rose, but had to make up more than 0.8% to surpass the November 8 record. Dow shares of Boeing climbed 1.5% in the premarket on Wednesday after the company received an order from India’s Akasa Air for $9 billion worth of 737 Max jets. Bitcoin hit $60,000 again on Wednesday, but remained about 13% lower than last week’s all-time high.

Retail earnings continued on Wednesday, with Target reporting tax revenues and revenues for the third quarter that exceeded estimates. The big-box retailer raised the outlook. But like Walmart Tuesday, Target investors were concerned about margins as the company took on some of the increased costs of supply chain disruptions and labor shortages rather than passing them on to consumers. Target stocks fell more than 5% in the premarket.

The 10-year government bond yields remained above 1.6% early Wednesday following the government’s October housing report and building permits. The number of starts decreased by 0.7% to an annual rate of 1.52 million units, which was less than expected. Permits rose 4% in October to an annual rate of 1.65 million, exceeding estimates. On Tuesday, homebuilders’ confidence shot past expectations as buyer demand remains high.

President Joe Biden will visit a General Motors factory in Detroit that makes electric vehicles like him on Wednesday continues to sell the benefits of the recently signed $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. Biden is expected to highlight $7.5 billion in the new EV charger law. The GM plant that the president will visit was set to close in 2018 as the automaker attempted to divest excess factory capacity. The facility, which has been building combustion-engine vehicles since opening in 1985, was rescued a year later and renamed Factory Zero to build zero-emission electric vehicles.

As old automakers ramp up their EV offerings, investors are offering a host of new entrants to electric vehicles such as Lucid Group. The stock, which started trading in July, rose nearly 24% on Tuesday after executives said reservations for the first vehicles had risen and production plans for 2022 were still on track. That stock price move pushed Lucid’s market value to $89.87 billion, and the stock rose again in Wednesday’s premarket. That’s almost as high as GM and higher than Ford. Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson, a former Tesla executive, told CNBC on Tuesday evening that the automaker is targeting factory expansion in China and the Middle East by the middle of the decade.