Top 5 things to watch in markets in the week ahead

investing.com:

Investing.com — Second-quarter earnings season kicks into gear, the U.S. and China release economic data and inflation figures out of the U.K. will likely determine the size of the Bank of England’s next rate hike. Meanwhile, oil prices look poised for another weekly gain.

1. Earnings time

Second-quarter earnings season gets underway in earnest in the coming week, with Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) the first of the massive growth and technology names that have dominated the U.S. stock market so far this year to report, with results expected on Wednesday.

Tesla is one of seven huge stocks, along with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Meta Platforms  (NASDAQ:META) recently dubbed the “Magnificent Seven” by investors. Shares in the megacaps have soared between 40% and over 200% so far this year, accounting for almost all of the S&P 500’s rally.

There are indications the rally is broadening to other sectors, but the outsize gains have come with big earnings expectations so if Tesla or any other megacaps disappoint this quarter, the hit to equity indexes could be severe.

A slew of other big companies also post results in the coming week. Bank earnings continue, with Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) on Tuesday and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) on Wednesday. Also on the docket are Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Philip Morris (NYSE:PM).

2. U.S. economic data

U.S. retail sales data for June on Tuesday is expected to show an increase of 0.5%, boosted by rebounding auto sales and higher gasoline station sales, indicating that consumer demand remains resilient.

Investors will also get an update on the health of the housing sector with reports on