Today's Economic and Earnings Reports

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There will be little rest for Super Bowl enthusiasts on Monday morning, as the day offers a hectic start to a busy week. We've got four economic reports and a relatively heavy earnings schedule to juggle.

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Even before you've finished your first coffee, the Personal Income and Outlays data for December will have been released. Like every other economic data point, the only question the report can answer is "just how bad is it?"

Both Income and Outlays are expected to have declined further in December, according to Bloomberg's survey of economists. Income is forecast down 0.4%, versus a drop of 0.2% in November. The logic behind the drab data is not too tricky to figure out. You see, companies don't offer buyout deals to their cheapest employees. Also, despite what you've read, Wall Street bonus payments are down dramatically this year (-44%), as are bonuses across industry.

Personal Spending is seen declining 0.9%, after dropping by 0.6% in November. The economic stimulus debate centers around how to inspire spending. December's report seems sure to fuel that fire further.

Pricing data has offered some reason for hope, but core prices have not budged over the past couple months ("core" excludes food and energy). The Greek believes prices are sticky, because business managers are slower to cut prices than they are to raise them, even when underlying raw materials costs change. There's likely a form of unspoken collusion that occurs when industry structure moves toward oligopoly. However, in truly competitive environments, prices should adjust almost simultaneously, in my view. Core PCE is seen unchanged again this month, according to the consensus.

At 10:00 a.m., ISM's Manufacturing Index is expected to edge minimally higher in January. Economists are looking for a reading of 32.6, versus 32.4 in December. Whatever the reading, it'll likely be near a 60-year low. Most of the economists surveyed seem to be forecasting a result toward the low end of a wide range. In other words, I would not take solace from the differences of opinion nor the high end of the range.

Also at 10:00, Construction Spending is expected lower, down 1.2% for December. This drop comes after a 0.6% November decline. Last week's data told us New Home Sales, and thus construction activity, is scarce. The commercial real estate market is also disappearing, so these figures may still be well off an eventual lower bottom mark. The government wants to increase construction spending, but on net, we still see a further decline in store in this reading.

December's Motor Vehicle Sales were only slightly off the record low of 7.5 million. Given the plant closures and hours and staff reduction across the industry, we expect January's sales will not be far off the 7.7 million mark recorded last month. According to Bloomberg's tally, economists seem to agree.

While the market will be closed in Malaysia, U.S. earnings news should be expected from Aflac (NYSE: AFL), Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC), Humana (NYSE: HUM), Mattel (NYSE: MAT), Rockwell Automation (NYSE: ROK), SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK), Sysco (NYSE: SYY) and W.R Grace (NYSE: GRA). Also look for reports from Actuate (Nasdaq: ACTU), Array BioPharma (Nasdaq: ARRY), Atheros Communications (Nasdaq: ATHR), Banco Bradesco (NYSE: BBD), BE Aerospace (Nasdaq: BEAV), Black Hills Corp. (NYSE: BKH), Brookfield Homes (NYSE: BHS), Buckeye Group (NYSE: BGH), Coachmen Industries (NYSE: COA), Complete Production Services (NYSE: CPX), Corn Products Int'l (NYSE: CPO), Crown Holdings (NYSE: CCK), Dover Downs (NYSE: DDE), Dover Motorsports (NYSE: DVD), DSP Group (Nasdaq: DSPG), Enterprise Products (NYSE: EPD), Eurobancshares (Nasdaq: EUBK), First Marblehead Corp. (NYSE: FMD), First State Bancorp (Nasdaq: FSNM), Gladstone Investment (Nasdaq: GAIN), Haemonetics (NYSE: HAE), Hologic (Nasdaq: HOLX), ICU Medical (Nasdaq: ICUI), InFocus (Nasdaq: INFS), John B. Sanfilippo (Nasdaq: JBSS), Lacrosse (Nasdaq: BOOT), Liberty Properties (NYSE: LRY), Mindspeed (Nasdaq: MSPD), Otter Tail Power (Nasdaq: OTTR), PartnerRe (NYSE: PRE), Peapack-Gladstone (NYSE: PGC), Piper Jaffray (NYSE: PJC), Plum Creek Timber (NYSE: PCL), Radcom (Nasdaq: RDCM), Rent-A-Center (Nasdaq: RCII), Rochester Medical (Nasdaq: ROCM), Sappi Ltd (NYSE: SPP), Shinhan Financial (NYSE: SHG), Tessera Tech (Nasdaq: TSRA), Trident Microsystems (Nasdaq: TRID) and Unica Corp. (Nasdaq: UNCA).

The remainder of "The Week Ahead" will be published on Monday this week. Please see our disclosures at the Wall Street Greek website and author bio pages found there.