Retailers are going to be in the spotlight this week as the nation’s biggest stores report quarterly earnings. Home improvement store, Lowe’s releases numbers before the bell and Norgedrums, after the close.  Before the market opens today, the Chicago Fed will release its index measuring its US economic activity, and inflationary pressure for the month of January. Later on, look for the Dow’s Fed survey of manufacturing activity in its south west district, and investors will be watching very closely after last week’s unexpected drop in the Philadelphia Index.

Some major economic financial data today plus a lot of what that financial industry likes to call, “Fed speak”. Overall there will be seven such speeches including Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s annual Humphrey Hawkins testimony to the house financial services committee, that’s on Wednesday. Risk management and stabilizing inflation, those are the two topics of Fed governor’s Randal Kruzner and Fredric Michigan will speak about in separate addresses today. We will also get existing home sales for January, expected to be down 2%. The Dow Jones closed Friday’s session up 96 points at 12,300 and were tech stocks at 3.5 points to the Nasdaq.