Busy day for headline chasers (which these days is everyone) with the ISM-leading Chicago PMI taking center stage at 9:45 am. At some point the economy will have to start 'confirming' the Bernanke Bear case or else one may get the impression that the Chairman was merely posturing with providing a perpetual LSAP open backstop to the Russell 2000. Also, the Case Shiller index which will report the 7th consecutive home price drop will likely not get a whole lot of attention.
8:30: Employment cost index (Q4): Moderate wage growth. Forecast agrees that growth in the Employment Cost Index (ECI) picked up from 0.3% (qoq, not annualized) in 2011Q3 to 0.5% in Q4.
GS: +0.5%; Consensus: +0.4%; Last: +0.3%.
9:00: S&P/Case-Shiller home price index (Nov): Down. Asking prices point to another decline in the seasonally adjusted Case-Shiller 20-city index during November.
GS -0.4%; Consensus: -0.5%; Last -0.6%.
9:45: Chicago purchasing managers’ index (January). Small decline? The Chicago purchasing managers’ index remains elevated compared to the other regional manufacturing surveys, and Goldman expects a small decline this month.
GS: 61.0; Consensus: 63.0; Last: 62.2.
10:00: Conference Board confidence index (January): Further improvement. Reported strength in the University of Michigan’s sentiment index points to another gain in the Conference Board’s measure of consumer confidence. The consensus forecast is for an increase to 68 from 64.5.
GS: 70.0; Consensus: 68.0; Last: 64.5.
From GS