The Week Ahead: Less Active Data Calendar Ahead of FOMC

To put things in perspective, 3 individual days from the penultimate trading week (the one with FOMC Minutes and NFP) each had trading ranges wider than the entirety of last week's range.  In other words, bond markets were quite calm and contained given the recent tumult.  

Looking out over the impending week of data and events, it's hard not to view it as some sort of "opening act" for the headliners in the week that follows.  We're speaking primarily of Wednesday's FOMC Announcement and Bernanke press conference although the first release of Q1 GDP on Friday is enough to prevent markets from tuning out after mid-week festivities.

The current week is not without interesting data, nor does it arrive in uninteresting fashion.  Indeed only three of the five days contain data worth mentioning while the other two are essentially empty.  

Of the days lucky enough to see some data, Monday is perhaps the most concentrated.   Things kick off with what is probably the most important data-set of the week: Retail Sales, which are expected to have risen only 0.3 percent after last month's 1.1 percent rise.  Empire State Manufacturing shares the time-slot, but anything remotely close to the 18.0 consensus is inconsequential next to Retail Sales.

Treasury International Capital--a perennially retrospective report with less-than-ideal accuracy is perhaps a bit more deserving of our attention than it has been in the past.  TIC data collection has until now, relied on the IESUB (Internet Electronic Submission) reporting system.  Today's report is the first to boast data collection from the new "Reporting Central" reporting application, part of an initiative that began in early 2011 (read more HERE if this sort of stuff interests you, but don't feel bad if it doesn't!).  The ultimate goal/hope is that the monthly TIC data will more accurate with respect to annual revisions and thus more relevant to current trading.  Any way you slice it though, it's always going to be month-old data.

Speaking of month-old data, Business Inventories also print today at 10am for the month of February and are expected up 0.6 pct vs a 0.7 pct increase last time.  More timely, but probably less significant, the NAHB Housing Market Index prints at the same time and is seen unchanged vs last month's reading of 28.0.