Events to Watch in the Week Ahead. of March 15- 19 $SPY

Calendar of events to watch for the week of Mon Mar 15 - things are pretty quiet on the US corporate events calendar, but there are a bunch of big events to watch coming up. The highlight will be Tues' FOMC meeting (note that this is the first single day scheduled meeting the Fed has held since the crisis broke out) although it doesn’t seem like anything really will change (the language will prob. still reiterate “extended period”; on the policy front, the Fed will repeat that
asset purchases are on pace to end as planned by the end of Q1; there will not likely be any movement on the Fed Funds or the rate paid on excess reserves. The Fed has already taken action on the discount rate and has emphasized that this isn’t a tool concerning monetary policy and will prob. not be touched at FOMC events).

The other big central bank meeting of the week will be the BOJ, where it is widely anticipated that further easing actions will be taken to help stimuluate that country’s economy and combate deflation. In addition to the central banks, European finance ministers will hold two days of meetings this Mon and Tues; also the EC is due to publish its first update on the Greek austerity cuts on Mon. There aren’t expected to be any actual announcements on aid for Greece, but ministers will prob. reiterate their commitment to provide support should the need arise. Bloomberg and other wires have reported that the finance ministers will also discuss formalizing some sort of aid policy in the event other countries encounter difficulties, but its not clear if anything specific will be announced (the wires imply that no formal aid mechanisms will be unveiled). On the corporate front, the biggest earningsreport of the week will be from FDX Thurs morning. In financials, there will be a couple important credit card events (the master trust #s on Mon and DFS’ earnings

Tues night –although keep in mind that DFS already preannounced the current Q). In Europe, watch for earnings out of Unicredit and National Bank of Greece (NBG). On Citigroup, May 16 is the day on which Washington can start to sell off its 7B+ common share stake (the Treasury will have to file a prospectus for the sale). Washington will be closely watched this week as the White House and Senate put pressure on the House to pass the Senate HC bill (Obama has delayed his departure for an Asia trip from Mar 18 to Mar 21 in order to stay in town a few extra days and push for HC). Senator Dodd is expected to unveil a financial regulatory overhaul bill on Mon that won’t have Republican support. There is an OPEC meeting Mar 17 (there isn’t expected to be any change in output). On the eco front in the US, we’ll get a first look at March eco data from the Empire Manufacturing and Philadelphia Fed surveys as well as a few inflation datapoints (both CPI and PPI). In Europe, focus likely on the Eurozone Unemployment,

Current Accounts and German ZEW. J.P. Morgan’s Gaming, Lodging, Restaurant & Leisure Management Access Forum takes place at the Encore at the Wynn Las Vegas on March 17 & 18. Fri 3/19 promises to be a very volatile day as we will have a quad witch along w/the S&P rebalance.