The key economic reports this week are December retail sales and the Consumer Price Index (CPI).





----- Monday, Jan 8th -----

----- Tuesday, Jan 2nd -----

----- Wednesday, Jan 3rd -----

----- Thursday, Jan 4th -----

----- Friday, Jan 5th -----

3:00 PM:from the Federal Reserve. The consensus is for consumer credit to increase $18.0 billion in November.6:00 AM ET: NFIBfor December. 10:00 AM ET:for November from the BLS.This graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.Jobs openings decreased in October to 5.996 million from 6.177 in September.The number of job openings (yellow) were up 7.3% year-over-year, and Quits were up 3.3% year-over-year.7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the8:30 AM: Thereport will be released. The consensus is for 245 thousand initial claims, down from 250 thousand the previous week.8:30 AM: Thefrom the BLS. The consensus is a 0.2% increase in PPI, and a 0.2% increase in core PPI. 8:30 AM ET:for December will be released. The consensus is for a 0.5% increase in retail sales.This graph shows the year-over-year change in retail sales and food service (ex-gasoline) since 1993. Retail and Food service sales, ex-gasoline, increased by 5.0% on a YoY basis in November.8:30 AM: Thefrom the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in CPI, and a 0.2% increase in core CPI.10:00 AM:(business inventories) report for November. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in inventories.