The only reports on the calendar this week are housing related, and it got me thinking: what's left?

Pretty much nothing.

As the fairy tale goes, the big bad wolf doesn't even need to huff and puff; the house has already been blown down.

Foreclosures jumped 81 percent nationwide last year. That's 3.2 million homes.

In December alone, foreclosures jumped 41 percent versus the December 2007 reading.

The readings for the reports this week anticipate further drops in both December Building Permits and Housing Starts. The only question is by how much. Last month, expectations for both reports were off by at least 10 percent. This month is expected to be nearly identical to last month for Building Permits, and a drop of about 15k units in the Housing Starts report.

Try as I might, I can't see either of these reports coming close to expectations. I don't think a slowdown of 75k units on each is unrealistic. The housing market is just in terrible shape. Excess inventory is growing, not shrinking. A reading of 550k or even less on both reports is reasonable. I guess we will find out Thursday.

Earnings:
Tues: BAC, CSX, IBM, JNJ,
Wed: ABT, AAPL, EBAY, USB, UTX
Thur: BAX, GOOG, MSFT
Fri: GE, HOG,

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