by Calculated Risk on 10/06/2012 01:01:00 PM

Earlier:
• Summary for Week Ending Oct 5th

Early in the week, the focus will be on Europe with a report due on Greece, the ESM becoming active, and a finance minister meeting.

The key US report for this week will be the August trade balance report on Thursday.

Note: I will be in San Francisco later this week attending the Zillow / USC housing forum.

----- Monday, Oct 8th----- Columbus Day Holiday: Banks will be closed in observance of Columbus Day. The stock market will be open.

6:00 AM ET: Europe's European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will become active.

6:00 AM: The "Troika" Report On Greece will be released.

12:00 PM: the EU Finance Minsters meet in Luxembourg.

----- Tuesday, Oct 9th ----- 6:00 AM: Eurozone Finance Minsters Meet

----- Wednesday, Oct 10th ----- 7:00 AM: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the mortgage purchase applications index.

10:00 AM: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for August 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 July to 3.664 million, down from 3.722 million in June. The number of job openings (yellow) has generally been trending up, and openings are up about 9% year-over-year compared to July 2011.

10:00 AM: Monthly Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories for August. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in inventories.

2:00 PM: Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts. This might show some slight improvement.  Some analysts will be looking for concerns about Europe or the "fiscal cliff".

----- Thursday, Oct 11th ----- 8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to increase to 370 thousand from 367 thousand.

8:30 AM: Trade Balance report for August from the Census Bureau.

This graph is through July. Both exports and imports decreased in July. Exports are 10% above the pre-recession peak and up 3% compared to July 2011; imports are just below the pre-recession peak, and up about 1% compared to July 2011.

The consensus is for the U.S. trade deficit to increase to $44.0 billion in August, up from from $42.0 billion in July. Export activity to Europe will be closely watched due to economic weakness.

8:30 AM: Import and Export Prices for September. The consensus is a for a 0.7% increase in import prices

10:00 AM: Speech by Fed Governor Jeremy Stein, "Evaluating Large-Scale Asset Purchases", At the Brookings Institution Discussion, Washington, D.C.

----- Friday, Oct 12th ----- 8:30 AM: Producer Price Index for September. The consensus is for a 0.8% increase in producer prices (0.2% increase in core).

9:55 AM: Reuter's/University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (preliminary for October). The consensus is for sentiment to be unchanged at 78.3.