The January 10 week follows up the employment report with a series of economic data releases that will help firm up perceptions of conditions in the fourth quarter 2010. The highlight is likely to be the retail sales report, but the data on inflation will be nearly as closely watched.The release of the Fed's Beige Book will also shape expectations for the upcoming FOMC meeting on January 25-26.
Earnings season for the fourth quarter 2010 gets off to its unofficial start with the report from Alcoa on Monday. The first week's reports are fairly sparse, especially for big names, but will include Intel on Thursday and JPMorgan Chase on Friday.
The most anxiously awaited of the week's data will have to wait until Friday when both the retail sales and CPI reports are released at the same time. The weekly measures of retail activity and the monthly same-store sales comparisons for fiscal December both point to a possible strong report for retail and food sales in December.
The Consumer Price Index for December should reflect higher food and energy prices, but at the core will continue to show few areas of upward pressure.
The CPI is preceded by the December Producer Price Index on Thursday, and the Import Price Index for December on Wednesday. Both are also expected to show that inflation remained quite tame at year-end, and see some upward pressure from commodities prices.
The earliest monthly reads on consumer confidence are...read more
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