Earnings Season Preview (Market or Break for the Bull Market)

What’s in Today’s Report:

• Earnings Season Preview:  Two Important Factors

Futures are slightly lower despite generally good news overnight, as markets continue to digest the recent rally.

The U.S. & China announced the next round of trade talks will occur Jan 30/31 in Washington, which is a mild positive (although it was largely expected and mostly priced in).

Economically, data was mixed Japanese Household Spending rose 1.1% vs. (E) 0.2%, while UK Industrial Production dropped –0.3% vs. (E) 0.4%.

Today is all about the CPI  report (E: -0.1% m/m, 1.9% y/y).  Both the headline and core need to stay around 2.0% yoy for this “dovish” Fed narrative to continue to grow, as a hot CPI report could undo some of the rally markets have enjoyed since last Friday.