By Chuck Butler, editor
www.worldcurrencywatch.com 

The U.S. data cupboard is chock-full-o-data this week, and the Fed's FOMC meets tomorrow, but won't announce their rate decision until Wednesday.

I've always wondered just what these Fed Heads do during these two-day meetings. I've always contended that they most likely play board games, or maybe Battleship. I can hear Kohn, telling Bernanke, "Ben, by Joe, you've sunk my battleship!" (It’s even funnier if you say it in a British accent.)

If Only Officials Would Have Paid Attention…

We begin the week with existing home sales and leading indicators. I keep saying over and over again that if the markets had either read my articles, or more likely paid attention to the leading indicators they would NOT have been blindsided by this recession.

Leading indicators have told us for months now that things were not going well for the economy. And voila, we suddenly have a recession! I believe leading indicators will continue to predict more problems ahead. Forecasters already say leading indicators will be a negative -.3%. And existing home sales? The rot on that vine has been exposed for over a year and a half now.

Here’s a rundown of the rest of the data we’ll see this week.

Tomorrow: Case-Shiller Home Price Index, and Consumer Confidence

Wednesday: Fed’s rate decision (Not that it matters – as I’ve said, you can forget about anymore rate cuts. They are so close to zero, they are at zero.)

Thursday: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, which nearly reached 600,000 last week, durable goods orders, and new home sales

Friday: 4th quarter GDP (I first predicted -5.0%, but it looks like it’s going to be even worse than that.)