Good morning and welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on the stories moving the needle.
Home Depot heads into its August eighteenth earnings report with Wall Street penciling in modest but steady revenue and profit growth. The stock has held its ground through a sluggish housing market, and investors are watching closely for any signal that consumer spending on home improvement is finding a second wind heading into the fall.
Shifting to the energy sector, a nuclear startup has partnered with Halliburton to repurpose oil-drilling technology for one of the industry's most stubborn challenges — disposing of radioactive waste. Working out of a remote site in central Texas, the two companies are testing whether the same deep-bore drilling expertise that built the shale revolution can safely sequester nuclear material underground. It is an unconventional bet, but the economics of nuclear's revival make the waste problem increasingly urgent to solve.
And in the private markets, analyst Dan Ives has put a valuation on SpaceX that signals substantial upside for investors seeking exposure. Ives, who has built a reputation on aggressive but well-reasoned tech calls, argues the company's dominance in launch services and satellite infrastructure justifies a price tag that would rank it among the largest enterprises on the planet.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
