Taking a look at the key news items coming up next week:

• Monday – Nothing
• Tuesday – Retail Sales
• Wednesday – Payrolls/Unemployment Rate
• Thursday – Existing home sales
• Friday – CPI

One thing to keep in mind about these numbers is their importance depends on what the market news focuses. During the great inflationing, used car prices were a watched number when car prices were a driver of inflation. Now, nobody cares. Of those numbers, Wednesday and Friday are key because of the debate about interest rates. Do rates need to come down more because the job market is weaker, or do they need to hold because we still need to make progress on inflation? I think we’re not paying enough attention to the components of retail sales because if the market tanks, and the top 10% of households no longer want to spend, we could see consumer spending dry up. But that probably won’t be this month’s number.