January 18, 2016 The Week Ahead

The S&P 500 continues to see heavy selling pressure this year, as we’re already down 8% thus far. Many attribute it to the slowdown in China; The Shanghai Composite Index is down more than 17% year-to-date.

In addition, crude oil prices continue to drop. They’re down over 20%, early in the new year. Cash crude oil prices are currently trading below $30 per barrel.

The VIX actually didn’t change much from last week, closing above 27.

For a four-day trading week, it’s pretty busy. On Tuesday, we’ll get China retail sales and GDP numbers. On Thursday, we’ve got the ECB interest rate decision. On top of that, we’ve got a ton of earnings being reported.

Reporting this week: Netflix (NFLX), Bank of America (BAC), Morgan Stanley (MS), IBM, Goldman Sachs (GS), Starbucks (SBUX), and a whole lot more.

Here’s what else is on tap:

Key Economic Data:
20 January 2016- Consumer Price Index 8:30 AM ET, Housing Starts 8:30 AM ET
21 January 2016- Jobless Claims 8:30 AM ET, Philly Fed Survey 8:30 AM ET
22 January 2016- Existing Home Sales 10:00 AM ET

Key Earnings:
19 January 2016- BAC, MS, SCHW, UN, UNH CREE, IBKR, IBM, LLTC, NFLX
20 January 2016- EAT, GS, FFIV, XLNX
21 January 2016- ALK, CP, LUV, VZ, ISRG, JBHT, MXIM, SBUX
22 January 2016- COL, GE, KSU, LM, SAP, SYF

Conferences:
20 January 2016- World Economic Forum in Davos (runs til 1/23)