| Retail sales, business data, Fed on tap and Crude Oil, Gold Prices Look to Fed Rate Decision for Guidance |
| News - Financial News |
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Today's economic calendar includes retail sales reports, small-business optimism, business inventories, and the FOMC meeting announcement at 2:15 p.m. ET.The National Federation of Independent Business Small-Business Optimism Index will be released at 7:30 a.m. ET. There are no forecasts made for this report, which saw a small rise to 90.2 last month. Further readings above 90 would likely be taken as bullish, and a drop below 89 might be considered bearish.At 7:45 a.m. ET, the weekly ICSC/Goldman Store Sales report will be released. There are two parts to the report, the week-over-week and year-over-year changes. Most traders focus on the year-over-year number because it is a better indicator of the longer-term trend. The last week-over-week change came in at a -2.3 percent, while the year-over-year data showed a gain of 3.8 percent. [Read the full article] WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve officials are expected to spend their final policy meeting of 2011 fine-tuning a strategy for communicating changes in interest rates more explicitly. Many private economists don't expect any major announcement after the meeting Tuesday. But most think Fed officials will be completing a plan to forecast the direction of short-term rates starting next year. Doing so would help assure investors, companies and consumers that rates won't rise before a specific time. The new communications strategy could be unveiled as soon as next month, after the Fed's Jan 24-25 policy meeting. The Fed has kept its key rate, the federal funds rate, at a record low of between zero and 0.25 percent for three years. But the economy, while improving, is still weak. Unemployment remains high at 8.6 percent. The Fed is still considering ways to keep downward pressure on long-term rates. [Read the full article] Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivers opening remarks at a conference on "Small Business and Entrepreneurship during an Economic Recovery" at the Federal Reserve in Washington, November 9, 2011. REUTERS/Hyungwon KangWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is likely to hold off offering the economy fresh stimulus at a meeting on Tuesday as it weighs encouraging signs on the recovery against risks coming from Europe.The Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee began its meeting at about 8:30 a.m. EST as expected, a central bank official said. A statement is due at around 2:15 p.m.Central bank officials are expected to continue discussions on how they might sharpen their communications to get more traction out of the monetary easing they have already put in place, but observers rate chances of an announcement as low.Even less likely is the prospect of a new round of bond buying, although many analysts think that will happen eventually too. [Read the full article] 
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