We have almost made it to the Christmas break, but before we do, we have two days absolutely packed with reports. Tomorrow morning there will be five reports released, and Wednesday morning has three more.

Tuesday morning starts off with the final GDP report for the third quarter, and it looks like there won’t be any changes to the figure since the last report. As it stands, the report will likely show a contraction of a half-percent for the quarter. In my opinion, with everything that has transpired in the market, that isn’t so bad. If you think about all the job losses, failed businesses, etc. it seems like it could have been much worse.

The other big reports on Tuesday are the Existing Home Sales and New Home Sales reports for November. The Existing Home Sales report is expected to show a drop of 50k units, and the New Home Sales is likely to report a drop of 13k units. Without being able to see the breakdown per region, it is tough to say if this shows the further decline of the housing market, or if it is simply a seasonal slowdown in the Midwest and Northeast. I would tend to believe it is the latter.

Wednesday sees all three reports announced simultaneously at 8:30 am. The Durable Goods report for November is likely to show another dip of over three percent. Without sounding like a broken record, this shouldn’t surprise anyone. No one has money to purchase big-ticket items, Christmas discounts or not.

The other two announcements on Wednesday are the Personal Income and Personal Spending reports for November. Personal Income is expected to hold steady from last month, while the Spending report is likely to show another decline. Since the holiday shopping season really kicked off at the very tail end of last month, it probably didn’t boost the Spending report last month, but I definitely expect it to boost the December report.

Have a safe holiday break.

Source: GDP and Home Sales Highlight A Short, But Very Busy Week

Last 5 posts by Christian Hill

• Don’t Believe What You Hear About a Housing Recovery - August 5th, 2009
• Inflation May Show It’s Ugly Head, Big Week for Bank Earnings - July 13th, 2009
• Don’t Be Afraid To Take The LEAP - July 8th, 2009
• Take Advantage of the Growing Demand for Composite Materials - June 17th, 2009
• The Ethanol Fraud - June 3rd, 2009