The Week Ahead

Looking at what is coming up this week we have some events that could be significant market sentiment movers.

• Monday: Existing home sales data


• Tuesday: Consumer Confidence, New home sales data


• Wednesday: Durable goods data, FOMC meeting begins


• Thursday: FOMC decision, jobless claims, natural gas inventories,


• Friday: Personal income & spending

The ones that will have the most impact will be any surprises in housing data, unemployment data, and of course what comes out of the FOMC meeting.

While it is not expected the feds will do anything with the interest rates this week it always comes down to "how" they say it. A lot of people hang their hats on the what the feds say in their statement following the meeting. They essentially are looking at tea leaves to determine how the feds are feeling about the overall economy. In other words, they look for any clues about what the feds will do down the road.

The week we just got through ended on Friday with a pretty sour note. The selling was heavy and it was pretty much a constant event the whole day. The major indices took a dive and did not come up for air. The financial sector was the biggest impact on the market Friday with more concern over the subprime mortgage lending issue. This added to the selling intensity and by the end of the day it was a market wide "sell now and ask questions later" reaction.

So where are we going this week? I feel this week will start off with some of the large money folks 'testing' the markets. Friday was like someone turned up the heat on the hot tub and everybody was jumping out of the water as it got too hot. Now we will be seeing some cautious people dipping their toes in to see how the water feels. And I think that it is going to take strong signs of people getting back in the water before everyone joins in. The summer months are usually slow in the markets as history has shown us, but there is still good money to be made even in the slower months. We just have to get passed the nervous market right now.

There are still some good chart setups, albeit slightly damaged from the past week. But still some potential in a few stocks. There will be some new charts put up soon that I will be watching. And when people start getting back into the water again then the charts will stand a good chance of being winners.