Events to Watch for the Week Coming Up
The most important catalysts will be on the economic front. We will get the Nov manufacturing PMI/ISM readings (China hits late Tues night and the US comes Wed morning) as well as the US jobs report on Fri 12/3 (the St is looking for 143K in total non-farm adds; recall the Oct BLS reading was pretty encouraging). The Beige Book will be published on Wed 12/1 and also is in focus. On the corporate front, we will get auto sales on Wed and retail same-store-sales on Thurs (the retail sales releases will give companies an opportunity to update the St on how Black Friday went). ALTR and LSTR both will be publishing mid-Q updates (the first such updates for the CQ4). There are a few more Oct-end earnings (OVTI, ARO, SNPS, AVGO, TOL are among them). Looking towards Washington, the White House will host a summit on Tues 11/30 between Obama and the new GOP leadership (as far as the market is concerned, the big topic will be the fate of the Bush tax cuts). This coming weekend (Nov 27-28), we could see news on the Ireland bailout front (on Fri, press reports indicated that a formal aid package for Ireland could be unveiled this Sunday 11/28). The ECB meeting on Thurs 12/2 will be very important as the bank will discuss its exit strategies for 2011. Also – the US carrier group (led by The George Washington) is due to arrive off the coast of Korea and will be conducting military exercises w/the S Korean government starting Sunday (this will raise the risk of more altercations).
Black Friday Preview – Sentiment heading into Black Friday is significantly more positive this year vs. last year. The schedule for feedback on how Black Friday/Holiday 2010 are trending will kick off with the parade of CEO comments on cnbc Friday morning (in previous years, appearances have been made by Macy’s, BBY, JCP, etc.), be followed up by surveys/reports from ShopperTrak (typically hits on Sat. & Mon.), the National Retail Federation (typically hits on Sunday), SpendingPulse, RetailMetrics, ISI, PayPal, comScore, etc. over the weekend/Monday and then some company press releases (i.e. WMT released anecdotal Black Friday comments last year). The ultimate recap of Black Friday sales will come on Thursday with Retailers’ November Same Store Sales reports
