The Week Ahead: Moderate Econ, Bernanke Testimony, Another ECB Mass-Refinance

Although Non-Farm Payrolls does not make it onto this week's scheduled in it's traditional 'first Friday of the month' slot, there's still more domestic economic data for markets to digest than in the previous week.  With only Pending Home Sales today (and Dallas Fed Manufacturing for those keeping track, but we're not particularly interested) and ISM-NY on Friday (as well as ECRI, just like every Friday, and we're also not keeping track), the central three days of the week contain the lion's share of data and events.

Tuesday includes two relatively important reports in the form of Durable Goods and Consumer Confidence (see table below for times, forecasts, and previous values).  We'll also get Case Shiller Home Prices, but while that's eternally interesting to us mortgage market devotees, none of the housing or mortgage data have had much street cred as respected market-movers.  The same is true for MBA Mortgage Apps the following morning.

But that's where Wednesday's similarities to Tuesday end.  The second of three evolutions of GDP data hit at 8:30 with the preliminary reading on Q4, expected to have held in line with the advance reading of 2.8%.  One of the traditionally more closely watched regional manufacturing surveys, Chicago PMI prints at 9:45 and is seen improving slightly.  Bernanke's semi-annual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee adds a big-ticket name to Wednesday's marquis at 10am, even if he's widely expected to forego any mention of QE3 in anything other than the standard-issue "prepared to act as needed" sort of way.  The Beige Book follows at 2pm.

Not represented in the economic calendar below, is perhaps one of the key events of the week.  Wednesday marks the 2nd time around for the ECB's gargantuan refinance offerings where they'll give basically anyone who asks, incredibly cheap 3-year money.  This was a big deal for markets the last time around and is one of the measures most credited with improving the European Debt Crisis from "imminent doom" merely to "catastrophically awful."  Here's a more thorough write-up from Reuters:

(Reuters) - Money can't buy health or happiness, but it can help dull pain. This week the European Central Bank will throw a lot more money at the very painful problem of the euro zone's debt and banking crisis.

The chances are that the cash will indeed cool the fever, buying more time for Europe's politicians to find a cure for the underlying malady and so tempering what by common consent is the biggest risk facing the global economy.

The ECB on Wednesday will offer banks, for the second time, an unlimited volume of cheap three-year loans.

A Reuters poll of economists shows that banks, not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, will take 492 billion euros from the ECB, close to the 489 billion borrowed in the first deal just before Christmas.

"I don't expect this operation can solve all the problems, but hopefully it will take us past the worst point of the crisis," said Riccardo Barbieri, chief European economist at Mizuho International in London.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Markets will no doubt still be digesting the LTRO when Thursday steps up to offer the week's most robust set of domestic economic data.  Now... There's always a chance that markets will continue to mostly shun domestic econ, but on the chance that it might matter this week, then Thursday is an even better candidate than Wednesday.  We'll get the important Incomes and Outlays right of the bat, joined by by Jobless Claims at 8:30am.  Then the manufacturing report to rule them all will be out an hour and a half later with ISM's PMI (that's "Institute of Supply Management's Purchasing Manager's Index for those keeping score at home).  Playing the big acts off the stage is the relatively unimportant Construction Spending report. 

Mix all of the above in with various wild cards such as the increased level of attention being paid to oil prices, the ongoing Greek bond swap headline potential, as well as month-end tradeflow considerations, all in the absence of Treasury supply either this week or next (not to mention next week being the NFP week), and you have the makings for a potentially interesting week, that's not as clearly destined to bounce in a given direction as the previous week may have been (well, at least in retrospect, right?).  Ultimately, we'd probably gauge "interesting" by whether or not longer term ranges are meaningfully broken or tested, and with the centrality of levels heading into the week, we'd be able to observe quite a bit of movement before such breakouts are a risk.