Jim Cramer Blog

Friday offered a fistful of convenient scapegoats for investors in need of excuses to take some profits. The damage thus far is minimal, but it will be interesting to see if the current shift in negative sentiment takes hold for more than one or two sessions. Emphasis for Wall Street should continue to shift away from earnings reports and on to the issue of growth, interest rates and energy prices. It will be back to work for economic watchdogs, after a rather light calendar in the week prior. The first half will be light, but the G-7 Summit wrapped up this past weekend might add some volatility as traders digest comments made on foreign exchange policies. Wednesday’s retail sales figures will be watched by traders for any clues that consumer spending trends have changed. That day, however, testimony by Bernanke will undoubtedly take center stage. With a string of data points suggesting that the economy is back on track, investors will be looking to find any signals from the Fed Chief that point towards an interest rate hike. Whether clues from Bernanke are offered will be interesting to see. If disappointed, investors can turn towards a slug of data points on both Thursday and Friday. Readings on the pulse of the economy and price pressures that could impact rate policy will be delivered in force. One of the biggies will be Friday’s CPI data. Wall Street is expecting the core figure to come in at .2%. If the reading comes in higher than expected by just .1% to a level of .3%, it could be enough to sway the outlook on rates towards a tighter monetary policy. That being said, in conjunction with slowing earnings growth, price pressure on equities would likely result in a market long overdue for a period of correction.
Monday Economic: NA
Earnings: Administaff (ASF), Brush EM (BW), Ctrip.com (CTRIP), Cephalon (CEPH), Fording (FDG), iRobot (IRBT), YUM!Brands (YUM)
Tuesday Economic: Trade Balance (-59.5B)
Earnings: Anglogold (AU), Expeditors (EXPD), NASDAQ (NDAQ), Affiliated Computer (ACS), First Solar (FSLR), Invitrogen (IVGN), NVIDIA (NVDA), Watts (WTS), Weight Watchers (WTW), XTO Energy (XTO)
Wednesday Economic: Retail Sales / ex-auto (.3%, .3%), Weekly Crude, Business Inv (.4%)Earnings: Coca Cola (KO), Daktronics (DAKT), Deere (DE), Garmin (GRMN), Genzyme (GENZ), PF Changs (PFCB), Baidu (BIDU), Evergreen Solar (ESLR), Network App (NTAP), NutriSystem (NTRI)
ThursdayEconomic: Import / Export, Weekly Claims (310K), NY Empire (11), Ind Prod / Cap Util (0%, 81.7%), Philly Fed (5)
Earnings: Agilent (A), Biogen (BIIB), Hornbeck (HOS), Lifetime Fitness (LTM), Lufkin (LUFK), Olympic Steel (ZEUS), TradeStation (TRAD), aQuantive (AQNT), Bucyrus (BUCY), Chipotle (CMG), Hittite Micro (HITT)
FridayEconomic: Housing Starts / Bldg Permits (1.61M, 1.59M), PPI & Core (-.6%, .2%), Michigan (97)
Earnings: Campbell (CPB), Goodyear (GT), Hormel (HRL), OGE Energy (OGE)
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Labels: ACS, ASF, AU, BIIB, BW, CEPH, CMG, CTRIP, DAKT, EXPD, FDG, FSLR, GENZ, HRL, IRBT, IVGN, NDAQ, NTAP, TRAD, YUM