The five day trading week spanning November 16-20, 2009 will leave few stones unturned as the current economic strength is weighed and measured via the Retail Sales, Industrial Production, New Housing Starts, and Leading Indicator reports. 

Retail Sales

The September report showed negative growth in total sales on the back of a massive pullback from the C.A.R.S. program expiration, while ex-auto retail stayed positive. The auto market made a significant improvement from a 6.7 million to 7.9 million unit annual rate in October, leading economists to project positive headline growth for the month. Investors are also looking for a positive number out of the report and will hit the breaks on any negative headline numbers or perhaps a miss of the 0.9% growth estimate.

Industrial Production

Industrial production numbers on Tuesday will be foreshadowed by the "make" or "miss" of the consensus 29.0 in the Empire State Manufacturing Index report to be released Monday at 8:30 EST, which is consequently a decline from the 34.57 reading for the previous month of October. Industrial production was the first industry to nosedive twelve months ago and fights to recover amidst an anemic consumer base at the other end of the production pipeline.

New Housing Starts

The Commerce Department reported that new home sales declined in September by 3.6% to a 402,000 unit annual rate on October 29th, yet home builders have bottomed the slashing of production as the annual rate at which homes are produced now hovers near the 600,000 unit mark. While homebuilders seem to be making a heavy bet on the U.S. consumer recovering, it's possible that the bottoming in production has more to do with large scale debt reorganization from the major national players as financing has loosened from previous conditions. This Wednesday report is expected to show that the annual rate of new home construction started rose from 590,000 to 600,000 in October.

Leading Indicators

This Thursday report is expected to submit a 0.4% rate of improvement among the basket of leading economic indicators surveyed, down from the previous September reading of 1.0%, but may be altered as the above earlier economic reports may disappoint. 

Themes of USD weakening amidst Equity, commodity, Gold strength remain trade worthy themes, yet caution should be a virtue this week as macro stories out of China and Japan may take center stage. Surprises from U.S. economic reports should make for a volatile week as we watch the 1100 mark on the S&P 500 for guidance as the bulls push to prove their true grit at these lofty prices.