European Finance Ministers meeting – The most important event may wind up being the European Finance Ministers meeting on Nov 16 (at which Germany is hopefully going to provide some clarity on its plans for changing the European bailout frame.
Washington – Congress returns for a lame duck session on Mon and the new GOP leadership attending a White House summit on Wed (the big topic of discussion will be the Bush tax cuts).
Foreclosures – The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on foreclosures on Tues at 2:30pmET and the House Financial Services Committee will be holding a hearing on the same topic on Wed at 10amET.
Also for financials, we will get updates from a bunch of mgmt teams at the BoA/Merrill conf this Tues-Thurs (where the focus will be on dividends and mortgage repurchase requests) and the REIT industry’s biggest conf will be taking place.
Economics – On the economic front, the focus will be on inflation readings (PPI Tues and CPI on Wed – if either of these numbers runs hotter than planned, it could place further pressure on Treasuries) and housing (NAHB survey on Tues and housing starts and permits on Wed; also for housing – LOW reports Mon and HD reports Tues). Also – we will get the first Nov economic surveys (Empire on Mon and Philadelphia on Thurs). Retail sales on Mon and IP on Tues will also be in focus.
Looking at the Fed, the Senate Banking Committee will vote on Peter Diamond’s nomination to become a member of the Fed Board. In terms of Fed speakers, there will be a bunch (Lacker on Sun 11/14, Lockhard on Tues, Rosengren on Wed, Plosser on Thurs) but the key to watch will be Bernanke on Fri 11/19 at an ECB Conf in Frankfurt.
