The Week Ahead: PPI, December Sales Report to Drive Markets
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the first trading week of the year was a rather wild one, and investors will have some more economic reports to deal with this week.</s>DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Here now with her sector focus and a preview of the week ahead, Christine Romans. What are you watching?</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think there are people who think they barely survived last week on the Street. First new week of the year and it was pretty tough, even with rate cuts in the mix -- big surprise -- and then, you saw the markets really act strangely into the end of the week. Friday was another rough day. This week we get some more economic data. Folks are saying that it could help to solidify their opinions about what the Fed is going to do next. Its meeting -- next meeting on the docket is January 30th and 31st. So, just right around the corner. Among the numbers we're expecting, no great shakes today. We'll get consumer credit for November today. But, later this week, we'll have wholesale inventories. We have jobless claims on Thursday. And Friday seems to be the big important day, folks are tell me, PPI, that's the December Producer Price Index, and retail sales also for December. PPI is expected to be tame, no big signs of inflation there. But, retail sales are expected to be weak, matching the decline seen in November. And there's a recommendation from the Bond Market Association to close the bond market early on Friday. Don't forget it's the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend with markets closed on Monday. So, when you have a three-day weekend like that, you often see the bond market closing early on the prior day, which means things could shut up for business kind of early, as well on Friday. So, Friday seems to be the important day for the economic data. Also, we might get an early close then. We'll closely watch to see what that PPI number says, especially since the jobs report on Friday did carry a whiff of inflation concern in the wages component. Some people were talking about that a bit on Friday as well. So, we'll look for any more signs there. But, for the most part, people want to see that the Fed has the ammunition that it needs to maybe do another rate cut, which would be a tame inflation picture but slowing growth, and that's what they're looking for this week.</s>MARCHINI: Given those employment figures, you're right, the wages were up considerably, but almost everything else in the report was fairly weak. Is there going to be unusual attention paid Thursday to the latest figures on new claims for unemployment benefits?</s>ROMANS: I think there will be because there has been for some time now. You know, it was -- the weekly number that we get a good look at it very often, and it is something that we can often just ignore, frankly. But we look at that moving average over a period of several weeks, and we've been seeing those jobless claims numbers climb. And so people want to know just how much loosening there is in the jobs market, especially since, you know, there were some signs of strength in that jobs report on Friday, which caught some people by surprise. So, we'll closely watch those numbers as well, as well as the moving average of those jobless claims numbers. And definitely the labor market is back in focus.</s>MARCHINI: Thanks, Christine.</s>ROMANS: Sure. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com