(By Rich Bieglmeier) So, the stock market got the bounce to end the slide. What should investors be on the lookout for in the coming days? They should be watching to see if the NASDAQ, Dow, and S&P 500 hit new highs before crashing through Wednesday's lows.
If new 52-week highs win the race, the uptrend lives on, and stocks go higher. On the other hand, close below hump day's pivot lows, and the makings of a new downtrend could be materializing.
From a chart watcher's perch, that's the only game in town for the next few days to weeks.
At 8:30 am, ET, Personal Income & Outlays will give Wall Street an accounting for how much we are spending and earning. Economists see consumers picking up the pace by 0.5% in August, while incomes are expected to rise 0.2%.
Consumer reports throughout the month have been robust; so, we would expect to see a result that's on target or slightly higher than forecasted. As for income, nobody is all that worried about it right now. Jobless Claims and new jobs created are far more important. If spending ran hot for the month, stocks should pick up where they left off yesterday.
One last noteworthy trend to keep in mind, traders who want to lock in short-term profits might keep in mind that Monday's have been down days for four weeks in a row. It's not a 100%, but worth knowing if you time horizon is a day or two.
Unfortunately, no company reporting in the week ahead made it through our iEstimates screen with so few scheduled to report. In next Friday's Stock Market Opening Report, we should have more ideas and growing weekly as 3rd quarter earnings season "officially" starts with Alcoa, Inc. (AA) on October 9, 2012.
Happy Trading and we will see you Monday, have a great weekend!
Last week's iEstimate's results:
| Company | Ticker | Date | EST | iEstimate | Surprise | Surprise % | Actual |
| Texas Inds | TXI | 9/26/2012 | -0.07 | ($0.03) | 0.04 | 57.2% | ($0.12) |
| Lennar Corp -A | LEN | 9/24/2012 | 0.28 | $0.31 | 0.03 | 10.7% | $0.40 |