Manufacturing Monday

Two economic reports make the market Monday morning, both covering regional manufacturing measurements. The first will be the Chicago Fed National Activity Index at 8:30 AM ET. We don’t have a consensus forecast figure for you, but last month’s data showed the index declined to 0.02 in December, down from 0.27 in November. Based on the fact that the three-month moving average stuck below zero, the Chicago Fed construed that growth was under historic trend in December. It’ll be interesting to see if we fall below zero on the monthly data point for January. Readers of the blog should be aware of our belief here that the fiscal cliff fiasco paralyzed businesses into the turn of the year. Perhaps a relief valve switched in January, and business resumed. We’ll see…

At 10:30 AM ET, we’ll receive news from the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank as it publishes its Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey for February. January’s report illustrated improvement in the measure to 5.5 from 2.5. Zero is the breakeven point for these measures, and so the direction of the number was far more exciting than the value of the data point itself. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg see this measure slipping a bit in February to 4.0.

At 7:00 PM, Atlanta Fed Bank President Dennis Lockhard gives a speech on the economy.

President Obama will address a gathering of the nation’s governors, many of whom I’m sure are concerned about possible job losses on the pending “sequester”. I saw a governor speak on television last week, saying that, “Every governor wants to be a job creator,” and the Federal government is making that harder to do today.

The new Secretary of State, John Kerry, kicks off a trip to visit with the nation’s allies in Europe with a first stop in London Monday.

The corporate wire has analysts meetings at Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI) and BE Aerospace (Nasdaq: BEAV). The BMO Capital Markets’ Metals & Mining Conference highlights presentations by Goldcorp (NYSE: GG) and Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM). The Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) Technology, Media & Telecom Conference highlights presentations by Altera (Nasdaq: ALTR) and Discover Communications (Nasdaq: DISCA). The Citi Global Healthcare Conference (NYSE: C) highlights presentations by Baxter Int’l (NYSE: BAX) and Aetna (NYSE: AET). The corporate earnings wire highlights the results of Autodesk (Nasdaq: ADSK), Firstenergy (NYSE: FE), ONEOK (NYSE: OKE), Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW), Amsurg (Nasdaq: AMSG) and more.

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