The Week Ahead: More of Everything

If market participants have been on vacation literally or figuratively (and many have), this is the week worth coming back for.  In fact, it's one of the most action-packed weeks of the year, period.  Even if no long term shifts are clearly solidified or convincingly called into question, extreme volatility remains possible almost from the outset, but especially from Wednesday through Friday.

Monday - Pending Home Sales at 10am is the only relevant piece of economic data in the US session, though Chicago and Dallas Fed districts both offer 3rd tier manufacturing data.  Even Pending Sales wouldn't typically be too interesting, but the housing market is back en vogue as a potential consideration for Fed policy, and the purchase market is of particular interest (as a steep drop-off in refinance demand is not much of a surprise given the recent rise in rates).

Tuesday - The pace pics up, though not by much.  Case Shiller Home Prices report at 9am, and while the effects of rising rates on purchases and prices is interesting, this price data is for the month of May--not capturing the brunt of the rate movement.  Consumer Confidence at 10am is the most significant economic release by that point in the week, and the FOMC begins it's two day meeting.  This will also be the last chance to catch your breath (or lock) before the potential volatility sharply increases early Wednesday morning.

Wednesday - Things get serious here.  In the bright and early 8:15am time-slot, the increasingly well-regarded ADP Employment report stands the chance of inspiring quick changes in the outlook for the week's headline event (Friday morning's NFP).  When ADP misses/beats big enough, it can have a big effect on trading levels, but it's not the only thing going on that day.  15 minutes later, Q2's first GDP reading comes out.  Economists expect +1.0 compared to Q1's final reading of +1.8.  Chicago PMI hits at 9:45am (and can cause volatility at 9:42am when subscribers get the data 3 minutes early), but the day's STILL not remotely through with potential market movers.  The 'biggie' comes at 2pm with the FOMC Announcement.  While the notion is on the table that the Fed will make some changes to the announcement that attempt to sooth recent volatility, there's just as much chance that the text remains relatively unchanged.  The latter suggests a more muted response, and even a surprise change wouldn't pack its normal punch with Friday's NFP on tap.  To top all of the preceding off, this is also "month-end," creating extra hustle and bustle in financial markets as money managers make last minute adjustments to portfolio balances in order to align them with various indices.  This doesn't have a default positive or negative connotation.

Thursday - Initial Jobless Claims at 8:30am is moderately important, but not critical ISM Manufacturing is the most relevant data point of the day at 10am with the Employment Index (component of ISM data) getting perhaps as much attention as the headline.

Friday - Incomes/Outlays (essentially 'consumer spending') and Factory Orders are second string reports compared to the mighty Employment Situation Report.  Not only is it always the biggest potential market mover of any given month in terms of market data, but it's importance is magnified by its current role in Fed policy.  Put simply, as long as the jobs report keeps on track just under 200k payrolls, markets will continue to expect the Fed to announce the first reduction in QE3 asset purchases at the September policy meeting. 

Bond markets began consolidating over a month ago, zoomed to weaker levels after the last payrolls report on July 5th and promptly returned to the business of consolidating.  2.46 to 2.62 have been good low/high edges of the sideways trend, but we've also seen the trading range grow slightly more narrow as seen in the chart below.  There's a chance the next move outside this range and/or triangle is an even bigger one than we saw in late June or early July.