THIS WEEK: Stocks Getting Cold Feet

The shortened week is light on economic data but earnings season is picking up. However, the weather might play a greater role than anything else this week, as investors begin to look toward the meaningful impact of what sure looks like a cold, wet winter.

This Week

Index ETF	YTD	Trailing 12-M
SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY)	-0.6%	+23.8%
SPDR Dow Jones (NYSE: DIA)	-0.8%	+20.6%
PowerShares QQQ (Nasdaq: QQQ)	-0.1%	+31.0%

Stocks have had a slow start to 2014, as we predicted they would in our New Year’s Eve article, Sell Stocks on Likely January Ill-Effects. Earlier this morning, we indicated our expectations that the week would likely bring more drift for stocks.

Economic Events

THIS WEEK’S ECONOMIC REPORT SCHEDULE
Economic Data Point	Prior	Expected
MONDAY
MLK Day
China GDP	+7.7%	+7.6%
ILO Global Employment Trends
World Future Energy Summit
TUESDAY
ICSC Weekly Store Sales	-1.0%
-Year-to-Year Pace	+1.3%
Redbook Store Sales	+2.9%
IMF Global Forecast
US CFTC on Swap Oversight
WEDNESDAY
BOJ Monetary Policy
ECB Governing Council Meeting
Mortgage Activity	+11.9%
U.K. Employment Report
Bank of Canada Monetary Policy
THURSDAY
PMI Manufacturing Index	54.4	55.0
Existing Home Sales	4.9 M	4.9 M
Leading Economic Indicators	+0.8%	+0.1%
Weekly Jobless Claims	326K	330K
FHFA House Price Index	+0.5%	+0.4%
Bloomberg Consumer Comfort	-31
EIA Natural Gas Report	-287 Bcf
EIA Petroleum Status	-7.7 M B
-Crude Oil Inventory	+6.2 M B
-Gasoline Inventory
FRIDAY
2014 Summit of African Union

The week is light on economic data, with an abnormal focus on Thursday. Because of the holiday this Monday, some reports are being pushed to that day. Existing Home Sales and Leading Economic Indicators are likely to weigh heaviest, in my view. Not much is expected from either report this week, with slight growth forecast for the LEI and stagnation seen for home sales. Anything worse than this means probably a point or two lower for stocks this week.

Investors will also want to pay attention to the draw from natural gas inventories, though next week’s figures should show the bigger draw. The especially cold and broad reaching winter is threatening to deplete natural gas reserves, and that could mean significantly higher electric bills for already strapped consumers and tightly operating businesses. It’s an economic drag folks, and something that will garner increasing attention should the weather hold.

Corporate Events

Earnings season is upon us, with major reports scheduled this week. I suggest investors focus on the reports of IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) for a read on the economy. Each of these is tied to business spending, but each also has company specific issues to manage today. Microsoft is also going to offer some insight into the questionable consumer, as will Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) and McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) this week. S&P 500 top performer Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) reports this week as well, and boy does it have a lot of paper profits built in from 2013 at stake.

HIGHLIGHTED EPS REPORTS
Company	Ticker
MONDAY
MLK Day
TUESDAY
Advanced Micro Devices	NYSE: AMD
Baker Hughes	NYSE: BHI
Cree	Nasdaq: CREE
Delta Air Lines	NYSE: DAL
Forest Laboratories	NYSE: FRX
Fulton Financial	Nasdaq: FULT
Halliburton	NYSE: HAL
Johnson & Johnson	NYSE: JNJ
LSI Corp.	NYSE: LSI
Petmed Express	Nasdaq: PETS
Regions Financial	NYSE: RF
Rockwell Collins	NYSE: COL
SAP	NYSE: SAP
Synovus Financial	NYSE: SNV
TD Ameritrade	Nasdaq: AMTD
Texas Instruments	NYSE: TXN
Travelers	NYSE: TRV
Unifi	NYSE: UFI
Unilever	NYSE: UL
Verizon	NYSE: VZ
Xilinx	Nasdaq: XLNX
WEDNESDAY
Abbott Laboratories	NYSE: ABT
Allegheny Technologies	NYSE: ATI
BancorpSouth	NYSE: BXS
Brinker International	NYSE: EAT
Coach	NYSE: COH
East West Bancorp	Nasdaq: EWBC
eBay	Nasdaq: EBAY
Ethan Allen Interiors	NYSE: ETH
F5 Networks	Nasdaq: FFIV
Fair Isaac	Nasdaq: FICO
Freeport-McMoRan	NYSE: FCX
General Dynamics	NYSE: GD
Jacobs Engineering	NYSE: JEC
Motorola Solutions	NYSE: MSI
Netflix	Nasdaq: NFLX
Noble Corporation	NYSE: NE
Norfolk Southern	NYSE: NSC
Northern Trust	Nasdaq: NTRS
SanDisk	Nasdaq: SNDK
Susquehanna Bancshares	Nasdaq: SUSQ
Teradyne	NYSE: TER
U.S. Bancorp	NYSE: USB
United Rentals	NYSE: URI
United Technologies	NYSE: UTX
Varian Medical	NYSE: VAR
Western Digital	NYSE: WDC
THURSDAY
AmerisourceBergen	NYSE: ABC
Baxter International	NYSE: BAX
Briggs & Stratton	NYSE: BGG
Cash America	NYSE: CSH
Celanese	NYSE: CE
Cypress Semiconductor	NYSE: CY
Discover Financial	NYSE: DFS
E*TRADE	Nasdaq: ETFC
Fairchild Semiconductor	NYSE: FCS
Fifth Third Bancorp	Nasdaq: FITB
Intuitive Surgical	Nasdaq: ISRG
J.B. Hunt	Nasdaq: JBHT
Janus Capital	NYSE: JNS
Johnson Controls	NYSE: JCI
Juniper Networks	Nasdaq: JNPR
KeyCorp	NYSE: KEY
KLA-Tencor	Nasdaq: KLAC
Lockheed Martin	NYSE: LMT
Matthews International	Nasdaq: MATW
McDonald’s	NYSE: MCD
MGIC Investment	NYSE: MTG
Microsoft	Nasdaq: MSFT
Popular	Nasdaq: BPOP
Precision Castparts	NYSE: PCP
Quality Systems	Nasdaq: QSII
ShoreTel	Nasdaq: SHOR
Southwest Airlines	NYSE: LUV
Starbucks	Nasdaq: SBUX
Strattec Security	Nasdaq: STRT
SVB Financial	Nasdaq: SIVB
Synaptics	Nasdaq: SYNA
Teledyne	NYSE: TDY
TESSCO	Nasdaq: TESS
Travelzoo	Nasdaq: TZOO
Union Pacific	NYSE: UNP
United Continental	NYSE: UAL
Uroplasty	NYSE: UPI
Western Alliance Bancorporation	NYSE: WAL
FRIDAY
Amcol International	NYSE: ACO
BancFirst	Nasdaq: BANF
Bristol-Myers Squibb	NYSE: BMY
Covidien	NYSE: COV
Enterprise Financial Services	Nasdaq: EFSC
First Niagara Financial	Nasdaq: FNFG
Honeywell	NYSE: HON
Kansas City Southern	NYSE: KSU
Kimberly-Clark	NYSE: KMB
Procter & Gamble	NYSE: PG
ResMed	NYSE: RMD
Stanley Black & Decker	NYSE: SWK
State Street	NYSE: STT
W.W. Grainger	NYSE: GWW
Xerox	NYSE: XRX

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