Weekend Reading: Pressure to Advance

Good Sunday morning. Here are some articles and papers worth reading. First, however, a look back at the week that just finished, and a look forward at the week ahead.

The major markets all advanced last week. The Dow and the S&P 500 gained 1.8% and 1.6%, respectively, while the Nasdaq Composite was up 0.4%. It was a good ending to a bad month. Click here for the weekly performance.

Solid Microsoft (MSFT Quote) results helped, as did a better-than-expected third-quarter GDP number, but the bottom line was that the market was aching to stop ending down all the time. After all, the S&P 500 remains off more than 2% in October, hardly a standout performance, although it happened in a month that is almost always one of the worst for the markets.

And where will we go next week as we begin a new month? Inflation will be front and center, with data due early in the week, but earnings continue to come in ahead of expectations, with Reuters reporting that 70% of reporting companies have beat the consensus numbers for the quarter. With new money coming into the market in the new month, most of the pressure will be for the market to advance -- and it will take crummy inflation data to stop it.

Turning to the economic week ahead, there are three main items worth watching. We have inflation news in the Personal Consumption Expenditure, or PCE, index due on Monday, and then we have the manufacturing survey from the Institute for Supply Management due on Tuesday. Last, but far from least, we have the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Tuesday, and if it doesn't raise interest rates by another quarter-point to 4%, investors will fall over in a faint from sheer surprise.

While next week is busy with third-quarter earnings reports, 347 of the S&P 500 have already reported, so we're through the busiest part of reporting period. Nevertheless, next week we will see earnings releases from Humana Inc. (HUM Quote), Kellogg Co. (K Quote), Electronic Arts (ERTS Quote), Procter & Gamble (PG Quote), and media company Time Warner Inc. (TWX Quote)