Retail sales figures and a measure of consumer sentiment this morning will offer fresh clues on the vigor of American shoppers. I'm James Willhite, with Friday's premarket update.

Futures are up. Didi Global shares are dropping ahead of the bell after a cybersecurity probe by Chinese regulators intensified. Treasury yields and crude prices are ticking higher. Earnings are due from Charles Schwab, State Street and Kansas City Southern. Read our full market wrap here.

Meanwhile, our Simon Clark explains why sovereign-wealth funds, which manage trillions of dollars for nations, are looking inward as countries reboot from the pandemic.

Moderna: The vaccine maker's shares were up 8% premarket after the S&P Dow Jones Indices said Moderna will join the S&P 500 prior to the opening of trading on July 21.

Intel: The semiconductor giant is exploring a deal to buy GlobalFoundries, according to people familiar with the matter, in a move that would rate as its largest acquisition ever.

Didi Global: Chinese regulators entered the offices of Didi Global’s Chinese ride-hailing business to conduct a cybersecurity investigation.

Alcoa: The aluminum producer topped second-quarter sales and income expectations as it benefited from strong demand and rising prices.

American Outdoor Brands: The outdoor sporting and camping goods retailer reported a net profit for the recent quarter after a loss a year earlier, but its shares dropped more than 9% off hours.

State Street, Charles Schwab and Kansas City Southern are among the companies reporting earnings Friday.

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Sovereign-wealth funds, which are among the world’s biggest stock-market players, are unleashing more of their firepower at home, as governments lean on them to reboot pandemic-stricken economies.

The funds made about $12.7 billion in new investments directly into companies and projects in their domestic economies in 2020, more than triple the amount in 2019, according to the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, or IFSWF. So far this year, sovereign-wealth funds have invested some $4 billion at home, about the same as in all of 2019.

“There is a general shift away from investing in international markets, to demonstrate the value of sovereign-wealth funds to citizens,” Victoria Barbary, the forum’s strategy director, said. “Countries planning new sovereign-wealth funds are increasingly focused on investing at home. This is a trend that Covid has accelerated.”

Sovereign-wealth funds manage trillions of dollars on behalf of nations, and where they direct their money can have a major impact on markets.

Their mandates vary. Some invest anywhere, while others can invest only internationally or domestically. Among the funds permitted to invest anywhere, since the coronavirus pandemic struck, domestic investment jumped to 44% of the total, up from 22% in the three years leading up to March 2020, according to research firm Global SWF.

Funds in Kuwait, Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are investing more domestically, Global SWF said.

Singapore’s Temasek Holdings has invested $8.9 billion in Singapore Airlines during the pandemic. Turkey’s sovereign-wealth fund invested $5.8 billion in 2020, mainly in local banks and insurers and in mobile-phone operator Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri, according to the IFSWF. The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund allocated 2 billion euros, the equivalent of around $2.4 billion, to a so-called Pandemic Stabilisation and Recovery Fund in 2020.

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Will sovereign-wealth funds retain their domestic focus in the years to come? Let us know by replying to this email. Your comments may be edited before publication in future newsletters, and please make sure to include your name and location.

Shares of companies that have been popular on Reddit forums are coming back to earth this week, with Carver Bancorp and AMC losing over a fifth of their value.

Quarterly earnings from JPMorgan, Goldman and other big banks show an economy going strong. The question is, for how long?

A strong recovery in global oil demand next year could accelerate the pace of inflation and pressure countries with high debt levels, OPEC said Thursday.

The extra return investors demand to hold lower-rated corporate bonds over ultrasafe Treasurys has fallen within striking distance of all-time lows, a sign of investors’ appetite for riskier assets and the changing composition of bond indexes.

• Health stocks have returned about 13% so far this year, falling behind the S&P 500 by about three percentage points.
   
• Palladium futures have soared from around $200 a troy ounce in 2009 to a high of $2,981 an ounce this year. But the yearslong rally could finally come to an end soon as car makers revert to using the now cheaper alternative platinum, UBS says.
   
• On this day in 1945, a device innocuously called "Gadget" was tested successfully near Alamogordo, N.M. It was the world's first atomic bomb, and it detonated at 5:29:45 a.m., releasing 20 kilotons of energy and vaporizing its 100-foot steel support tower. The Nuclear Age had secretly begun.

U.S. retail sales for June, due at 8:30 a.m. ET, are expected to fall 0.4% from a month earlier.

New York Fed President John Williams gives opening remarks at a webinar on culture in a post-pandemic workplace at 9 a.m.

U.S. business inventories for May, due at 10 a.m., are expected to increase 0.5% from a month earlier.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index, due at 10 a.m., is expected to rise to 86.3 in the opening weeks of July from 85.5 at the end of June.

The Baker Hughes rig count is out at 1 p.m.

3-D printing company Fathom is nearing a $1.4 billion SPAC deal to go public. Fathom is close to a deal to combine with the SPAC Altimar Acquisition Corp. II, people familiar with the matter said. The merger could be announced as soon as Friday.

Wall Street moved to close markets for Juneteenth in 2022. A trade association recommends that bond markets close for the full day on June 20 of next year, and stock exchanges are looking into doing the same.

How Robinhood transformed retail trading ahead of its IPO. The brokerage app Robinhood has transformed retail trading. WSJ explains its rise amid a series of legal investigations and regulatory challenges.

ServiceMax will go public in a $1.4 billion SPAC deal. The field-service software company backed by Silver Lake, Salesforce and GE will merge with Pathfinder Acquisition, the companies said.

Self-driving startup Aurora will go public through a SPAC. The special-purpose acquisition company behind the deal is backed by the founders of LinkedIn and Zynga.

The Senate confirmed Nellie Liang to a U.S. Treasury post. The former Federal Reserve economist will oversee U.S. fiscal policy at a time when the Biden administration is proposing trillions of dollars in new spending.

We want to be the first place you go to get ready for the opening bell every day. This newsletter is written and edited by James Willhite (@jimwillhite; james.willhite@wsj.com) in London.