The Week Ahead

There's not much on the economic calendar next week. We get consumer credit on Tuesday and international trade on Friday. However, we do get import/export prices on Friday which could be very important. Right now the calls for aggressive Fed action are increasing, but the Fed is concerned about inflation. Here is their inflation statement from their last policy release:

Readings on core inflation have improved modestly this year, but elevated energy and commodity prices, among other factors, may put upward pressure on inflation. In this context, the Committee judges that some inflation risks remain, and it will continue to monitor inflation developments carefully.

$100/bbl oil doesn't help that and neither will a spike in import/export prices.

Without much economic news, Fed speeches, company and industry news will probably dominate the market.

In addition, we get ICSC shopping numbers on Tuesday. Last week, the retail sector got killed:



Notice the retail ETF broke the lower channel support channel line last week.

Finally, there is the first five days of trading situation. According to the Trader's Almanac, when the first five trading days of the year are up days, the chances of the market being up for the year are 86.1%. We're not doing that well so far this year, so keep an eye on this.