From Reuters.com
The day ahead: Wednesday
October orders for durable goods are expected to show a modest rise of 0.5 percent. If the forecast is correct, it would be the third rise in four months and show that demand was picking up for big-ticket items.
Other Highlights:
* It’s a big day for economic data with personal spending and income, consumer sentiment, new home sales and the weekly jobless claims on tap.
* Tiffany reports results that will show whether it has been able to sustain the improvement in sales it reported in August.
* Deere & Co reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and will provide investors with a preliminary glimpse into the coming year.
* At the Reuters India Investment Summit in Bangalore and Mumbai, speakers include top executives from Infosys Technologies, Wipro, SAP India, Mphasis and Mahindra Satyam.
The day ahead: Thursday
Gross domestic product data for the third quarter should show that the U.S. economy resumed growing after a year of decline as consumers spent more and investment in home-building bounced back.
* Shorter term indicators could also provide a lift for markets looking for signs of growth. Weekly jobless claims are expected to have edged down by 10,000 to 521,000 in the latest week.
* A rare earnings miss a quarter ago will have investors and analysts keying on profits from oil giant Exxon Mobil, but rebounding global oil prices are likely to boost profits at the world’s largest publicly traded company.
* Investors will get a closer look at consumer demand when Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive issue their quarterly results.
The day ahead: Thursday
Back-to-school sales, weekly jobless data, and an ECB interest rate decision are among the highlights expected on Thursday.
* The key back-to-school selling season comes into focus as many U.S. retailers, including Target, Gap and Macys, report monthly sales.
* The Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims data are due at 8:30 a.m. EDT and should show a slight moderation to 560,000 from the previous week’s 570,000.
* The European Central Bank is expected to keep interest rates at 1.0 percent.
* Del Monte is expected to swing to a profit from a year-earlier loss when it reports first-quarter earnings.
* A deadline looms for the European Commission’s antitrust authority to approve Oracle’s $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun. Sources say there is rising concern at the commission about Oracle getting its hands on Sun’s MySQL database.
