Coming Week: Added Anxiety

Fed fund futures are now priced for a 1% chance of a rate hike by the end of March and 2% odds for a hike by May 31, according to Miller Tabak. In early December, the same markets had 8% odds on a January rate cut, 32% odds for easing in March and 84% for a May cut.

In addition to the Fed policy statement, Wednesday also brings the advance fourth-quarter GDP report and employment cost index.

"Keep in mind that the markets are consumed with data concerning the strength of the economy, the level of inflation and the near-term direction of interest rates, and these reports will address all three of these concerns," writes Robert Pavlik, chief investment officer and senior portfolio manager at Oaktree Asset Management.

Overall, it's a busy week for economic news, including consumer confidence on Tuesday, Chicago PMI and construction spending Wednesday and personal income/spending and auto sales data on Thursday.

All the above is a warm-up for Friday's January payroll data, as well as factor orders and University of Michigan consumer sentiment index.

Beyond the macroeconomic data, the next batch of earnings is the other obvious issue likely to affect trading in the week ahead.

Among the slew of reports are Dow components Verizon (VZ Quote) on Monday; Procter & Gamble(PG Quote), 3M(MMM Quote) and Merck (MRK Quote) on Tuesday; Boeing (BA Quote) and Altria (MO Quote) on Wednesday; and ExxonMobil (XOM Quote) on Thursday.