Three Economic Reports Are Coming Up, But The World Has Its Eyes On One

screengrab / Casino Royale

Here's run down of the today's economic reports courtesy of Calculated Risk:

Wednesday economic releases:
• At 7:00 AM ET, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:30 AM ET, Retail sales for January will be released. The consensus is for retail sales to increase 0.1% in January, and to increase 0.2% ex-autos.

• 10:00 AM, the Manufacturing and Trade: Inventories and Sales (business inventories) report for December will be released. The consensus is for a 0.3% increase in inventories.

Retail sales will be watch particularly closely because it will be the first month that incorporates the recent payroll tax hike. Citi's Steve Englander has declared it the "The Most Important Datapoint So Far This Year."

Click Here For Everything We Know About January Retail Sales >