Stock Market: Looking Forward to Next Week !

The Market will close Monday for Presidents Day.

For the past week, The S&P 500 and Dow hit fresh two years high, while the Nasdaq hit a three-year high and is 30 points away from its 2007 high. Overall it was a slow week , with energy stocks acting as the primary driver of this week’s gain.

Next week, it’s the last big week of earnings season,  here are the earning reports to watch for:

Tuesday’s key reports:  Home Depot, Wal-mart, Macy’s and Hewlett-Packard

Wednesday’s key reports: Chico’s FAS, Dollar Tree, Lowe’s

Thursday’s key reports: General Motors, Target and Salesforce.com

Friday’s key report: JC Penny

Housing dominates the economic reports

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Housing Index, due Tuesday, is likely to show a third straight month of falling prices in 20 U.S. markets.

Consumer Confidence Index, due Tuesday from The Conference Board. The index reached its highest level since March 2008 and has risen for five months. Nomura Securities sees the optimism to persist in February and beyond.

Existing-home sales, due Wednesday from the National Association of Realtors. The consensus estimate is for a seasonally adjusted rate of about 5.2 million units, down slightly from December. A big question is how much the horrible storms affected business. Gains in the California market, which accounts for 10% of total U.S. home sales, will be offset by declines in other states.

Durable-goods orders, due Thursday from the Commerce Department. December was a crummy month. Many economists see a rebound in January. The key will be aircraft orders.

New-home sales, due Thursday from the Commerce Department. This will probably come in at 320,000 to 330,000 units annualized. If there are gains, don't get too excited. New-home sales are running at a third or less of their levels of 2006.

Gross domestic product for the fourth quarter of 2010, first revision. Due Friday from the Commerce Department. This measures the total of goods and services running through the economy. Its revisions are as important as the initial report because the data about the economy are more complete. The initial estimate was that the economy expanded at a 3.2% rate. IHS Global Insight sees the growth unchanged. Nomura Securities sees it growing to 3.5%.

Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. Final estimate for February, due Friday.