Day Ahead - Top 3 Things to Watch

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Investing.com - Here's a preview of the top 3 things that could rock markets tomorrow

1. Economic Data Deluge Due

With weaker retail sales data reported Wednesday raising some concern that the consumer may not be able to continue to keep the U.S. economy afloat, traders will turn attention to a slew of data on housing, manufacturing and industrial production for further insight into the economic backdrop.

The Commerce Department will report on housing starts and building permits for September at 8:30 AM ET (12:30 GMT).

Economists expect that housing starts fell 8.6% to an annual rate of 1.320 million last month.

Building permits, an indication of future demand, are predicted to show a decline of 5.6% to 1.340 million.

On the heels of the housing data, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank will release its measure of manufacturing activity in the region. The Philly Fed index is expected to have fallen to a reading of 7.3 from 12.0 last month, as manufacturing activity has been dogged by the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

The Labor Department, meanwhile, releases its weekly count of people who filed for unemployment insurance last week. Economists forecast that initial jobless claims rose to 212,000 from 210,000 previously.

Elsewhere, U.S. industrial production activity for September due at 9:15 AM ET (13:15 GMT) is expected to have declined 0.1%.

2. Crude Oil Set for Fifth-Straight Weekly Build?

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) petroleum report due Wednesday, will likely prove a timely distraction as the uncertainty around the US-China trade deal has done little to ease investors concerns about falling demand amid a slowing global economy.

The EIA is expected to report a build in crude stockpiles of 2.88 million barrels for the week ended Oct. 11. Domestic crude inventories have increased for four-straight weeks.

Crude oil futures rose 1% to settle at $59.34 a barrel on Wednesday amid hopes that OPEC and its allies will decide to cut output further at a meeting in December;

Ahead of the EIA report, the American Petroleum Institute released data - which often serves as an early indication of weekly petroleum levels - that showed weekly crude stockpiles rose by 10.5 million barrels last week, compared with an estimate of about 2.9-million-barrel build.

Oil prices moved lower in response.

3. Netflix Earnings Cheer; IBM Results Do Not

After Wednesday's close, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) shares moved up more than 8% after the streaming media giant reported earnings that beat estimates. Netflix reported 6.8 million new subscribers. Its estimate of 7.6 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter was lower than the expectation for 9.5 million new subscribers.

The upside is that the lower estimate wasn't as bad as feared. Netflix faces a host of new video streaming competition from the likes of Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and others.

Netflix) said a fee increase has enabled the company to maintain a stable revenue stream and that's expected to continue.

IBM (NYSE:IBM), meanwhile, reported $2.68 a share in earnings that beat the Investing.com estimate of $2.67. Revenue was a tad lighter than expected.

Shares fell about 4.5% after hours. IBM (NYSE:IBM) has been slowly building up its cloud-computing offerings and reducing its concentration in its traditional mainframe business.