Stocks fall in whipsaw trading action as inflation report looms

Markets are on edge ahead of a few key catalysts this week.

But while an update on consumer prices is top of mind for investors, a more immediate event is taking place Tuesday evening: the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul has you covered with the top economic topics to watch:

One of former President Donald Trump’s favorite digs these days is to talk about “Comrade Kamala” Harris. It’s a constant feature on his social media with his last invocation of the moniker coming early Tuesday morning. It’s a blatantly false nickname that Trump has stuck with in recent weeks as an apparent way to signal his overall charge that Harris is a candidate of the far left who would wreck the economy if she wins.

Harris has, it seems, spent much of the last week preparing to rebut the charge with a series of moves to moderate her economic platform.

Last week, it was a small business plan that included a 10-fold increase in tax credits for new entrepreneurs and a split with Biden on long-term capital gains.

Then this week, her website debuted an issues page with the first chapter devoted to her “opportunity economy” plans.

Whether she can make that case and also convince voters of her business bona fides with Trump standing just a few feet away is something that will be closely watched.

Trump may also need to offer new details Tuesday night on his plans for tariffs.

The former president has promised to levy duties of 10% to 20% on US trading partners and higher rates of 60% on China if he is returned to the Oval Office.

That could lead to additional costs of up to $3,900 for a typical family each year, according to an estimate from Brendan Duke of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics has also run the numbers and found a somewhat smaller tab, but the Harris campaign has seized on that $3,900 stat to charge again and again in recent weeks that Trump is proposing something akin to a “national sales tax.”

It’s a charge that Trump has repeatedly brushed off in recent weeks, but he could be directly confronted with the issue by Harris or the debate moderators — ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis.

All told, “we expect tariffs and taxes to feature prominently as topics of discussion,” the analysts at Raymond James wrote in a recent preview for clients. But they noted that both candidates could be light on details, with Harris in particular incentivized “to remain light on policy specifics where she can through November.”