Schedule for Week of March 8, 2015

The key economic report this week is February retail sales on Thursday.

Also the Census Bureau will release the Q4 Quarterly Services Report on Wednesday, and the Fed will release the Q4 Flow of Funds report on Thursday.

----- Monday, March 9th -----
At 10:00 AM ET: The Fed will release the monthly Labor Market Conditions Index (LMCI).

----- Tuesday, March 10th -----
7:30 AM ET: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for February.

10:00 AM: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for January from the BLS.

This graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Jobs openings increased in December to 5.028 million from 4.847 million in November.

The number of job openings (yellow) were up 28% year-over-year, and Quits were up 12% year-over-year.

10:00 AM: Monthly Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories for January. The consensus is for a 0.1% decrease in inventories.

----- Wednesday, March 11th -----
7:00 AM: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

10:00 AM: The Q4 Quarterly Services Report from the Census Bureau.

4:30 PM: The Federal Reserve will release the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review Results (Stress Test)

----- Thursday, March 12th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to decrease to 309 thousand from 320 thousand.

8:30 AM ET: Retail sales for February will be released.

This graph shows retail sales since 1992 through January 2015. This is monthly retail sales and food service, seasonally adjusted (total and ex-gasoline). On a monthly basis, retail sales decreased 0.8% from December to January (seasonally adjusted), and sales were up 3.3% from January 2014.

The consensus is for retail sales to increase 0.3% in February, and to increase 0.5% ex-autos.

10:00 AM: Manufacturing and Trade: Inventories and Sales (business inventories) report for January.  The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in inventories.

12:00 PM: Q4 Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States from the Federal Reserve.

2:00 PM ET: The Monthly Treasury Budget Statement for February.

----- Friday, March 13th -----
8:30 AM: The Producer Price Index for February from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in prices, and a 0.1% increase in core PPI.

10:00 AM: University of Michigan's Consumer sentiment index (preliminary for March). The consensus is for a reading of 95.5, up from 95.4 in February.