The January 20 week starts off with a federal holiday and full market close on Monday. It is both the day of the M.L. King, Jr. birthday observance and inauguration day for President-elect Trump. Disruptions to the economic data release schedule will be minimal. The schedule is thin for the week with little potential to change the outlook for the FOMC meeting on January 28-29.
The communications blackout period around the FOMC meeting goes into effect at midnight on Saturday, January 18 and runs through midnight on Thursday, January 30. There will be no Fed speakers on the public engagement calendar. In the unlikely event of a public comment from an FOMC participant, they will avoid mentioning monetary policy.
With no inflation data on the calendar, anything pertaining to labor market conditions will get a close look. The only labor market report is weekly initial jobless claims at 8:30 ET on Thursday. New claims data will be for the week ending January 18 and should capture the tail-end of the wave of layoffs that normally happens in the first three weeks of January when businesses let seasonal workers go after the holiday period – particularly in the retail and transportation sectors. The claims data should remain consistent with relatively low layoff activity outside of the usual cuts to payrolls for seasonal workers after the end of the winter holidays.
