The Greek's Week Ahead - Jan 1

Happy New Year and welcome to our first edition of 2007. The Greek's Week Ahead is designed to provide you with a weekly stock market-moving event planner, so that you and your portfolio are prepared for macro events that have the potential to move the market in the week ahead.

We have a short week in store, with the New Year's Day holiday followed by a day of mourning Tuesday for United States' President Gerald R. Ford, who passed away last week. Still, there are some important things to be aware of for Monday and Tuesday, and we will go over them now.

On Monday, important change will take place within several global and regional organizations. Ban Ki-Moon will take over the office of Kofi Annan as the new secretary-general of the United Nations. At the same time, Russia takes over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council, just days after the council sanctioned Iran. With Russia in the lead role now, it should be interesting to see how they impact or obstruct further action against Iran. Finally, Germany takes over the rotating presidency of the EU, and the G8 presidency seat as well.

On Tuesday, as the nation mourns President Ford, equity and options markets will be closed while the bond market closes at 2 p.m. Russian markets are closed all week ahead of the Russian Orthodox Christmas, while markets in Japan, China and Pakistan are closed for holidays as well.

Wednesday, American markets resume trading and we are off to the races for 2007. It certainly will not be a slow start, as several important bits of data are due for release. The Federal Reserve will post the minutes of its December meeting for starters, and the market can get spooked by the tone and verbiage used in the meeting. The housing market will get its first read of the year with the release of November's construction spending data. A survey by Bloomberg News shows a consensus expectation for a 0.5% decline, which would mark the fifth consecutive monthly fall. The most recent measure of construction spending for October showed a 1.0% drop.

Also on Wednesday, look for the Institute for Supply Management's December Manufacturing Index at 10:00 a.m. Bloomberg's poll shows an expectation for a reading of 50.0. A measure above 50 indicates expansion, and November's reading showed a measure of 49.5. Recent regional manufacturing data has been mostly negative, until last week's Chicago region data, which showed growth. Sonic Corporation is scheduled to report earnings on Wednesday, with the consensus view for a $0.20 EPS expectation versus $0.18 a year ago.

Thursday marks the first meeting of the Democratic Party controlled 110th Congress. Important jobs data takes the spotlight on this day, with Challenger, Gray & Christmas' issuance of its reading on December and year-end job cuts. Also, weekly initial jobless claims will be reported for the week ended December 30th. Merrill Lynch expects the data to show a jobless claim number of 321,000.

Perhaps more important than the ISM manufacturing data and regional manufacturing metrics of the past two weeks, factory orders for November will be posted Thursday. Bloomberg's poll shows expectations for a 1.3% rise, compared to a 4.7% decrease in October. A better metric for the service-sector-driven American economy is likely ISM's non-manufacturing index, also to be released on Thursday. Merrill Lynch sees a slowing of growth, but a positive reading of 56.5.

Reporting earnings on Thursday, Constellation Brands, Texas Industries, Robbins & Myers Inc., Acuity Brands and Monsanto.

Friday concludes the shortened trading week with the release of nonfarm payrolls for December. Bloomberg's poll shows a consensus view for a rise of 115,000, as compared to a November rise of 132,000. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak to a group of economists in Chicago. Global Payments will report its fiscal second quarter earnings on Friday with consensus expectations for EPS of $0.44, compared to $0.38 in the prior year period.

We hope your weekly planner assists you in your preparations for the week, and we wish you a great first week of trading in 2007. Be sure to find "Today's Morning Coffee," to be published starting on Tuesday this week.