Three major retailers are poised to provide significant insights into the U.S. economy when they report earnings this week. Here's what to watch.

🏠 Home Depot: The home-improvement giant is expected to post a 1.5% gain in comparable sales when it reports earnings tomorrow morning, Bank of America noted.

• 👣 That growth may have to come from bigger average receipts, as foot traffic fell 2.6% year over year last quarter, per foot traffic monitor Placer.ai.
• 💨 A sluggish housing market remains a headwind, as fewer home sales mean fewer new homeowners going to Home Depot.
• ✂️ The company could benefit if the Fed cuts rates. Customers often finance larger projects like kitchen or bath remodels, and demand there has been weak, BofA analyst Robert Ohmes said in a research note.

🛒 Walmart: The world's largest retailer will offer a close look at the health of lower-income consumers when it reports earnings Thursday.

• 🏷️ Walmart's low prices have been helping the company stand out in an uncertain economy — but recent gains among wealthier shoppers are giving the company extra insulation as spending softens at the lower end.
• 🏃‍➡️ The company's "faster delivery times ... carry broad appeal across income cohorts," TD Cowen analyst Oliver Chen writes.

🛍️ Target: With shares down 23% year to date, the retailer faces pressure to show signs of a turnaround when it reports earnings Wednesday.

• 🤑 The company is facing "discretionary pressures in home, hardlines & apparel" and needs to put greater emphasis on "loyalty & value," according to Chen.
• 👣 Store traffic tells the story: same-store visits fell 3.6% in Q2, while Walmart's rose 1%, according to Placer.ai.

MSNBC, the progressive cable network owned by Comcast's NBCUniversal, is rebranding to MS NOW.

🔀 Catch up quick: Comcast is spinning off certain cable networks into a new company called Versant and keeping other NBCU assets like its NBC broadcast network and NBC News.

• The rebrand announced today is meant to create a distinction between the spun-out assets and those NBCU is keeping, Axios' Sara Fischer writes.

🔠 The MS NOW acronym stands for My Source for News, Opinion and the World.

• 🦚 The spun-off cable networks, including CNBC and the Golf Channel, will drop the iconic NBCU peacock logo.

💉 Novo Nordisk shares rose after the company said it secured expedited approval of its drug Wegovy for treatment of a serious liver disease. It's the latest indication that GLP-1 drugs could be used to treat conditions other than diabetes and obesity. (CNBC)

🗳️ Conservative cable network Newsmax has settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over the airing of 2020 election lies. It will pay $67 million over the next two fiscal years. (Axios)

☢️ Google and advanced nuclear startup Kairos Power plan to deploy a nuclear reactor for the Tennessee Valley Authority's grid to power Google's data centers in Tennessee and Alabama. (Axios Pro)

Soho House is taking its exclusivity to an old familiar level — it won't be open to public markets much longer.

• 🔒 After a four-year run as a publicly traded company, the famously private self-described "club for creatives" reached a go-private deal to sell itself to hospitality firm MCR Group for $2.7 billion.

🔎 Between the lines, via the WSJ: "The business has at times struggled with the balancing act of growing faster while keeping its exclusivity. ... Company executives have said that they can boost growth by expanding locations, rather than ramping up the number of members at existing clubs."

🏨 🤝 🎭 Zoom out: Today's deal pairs one of America's largest hotel operators with one of the country's largest members' club operators, Axios' Dan Primack writes.

• Fun fact: Actor and investor Ashton Kutcher will take a board seat.