In “normal” times the data releases scheduled for the upcoming week would be significant enough to be considered market movers, but these are anything but normal times.

The evidence traders and investors were largely ignoring economic data was clear in the week just ended when moderately positive reports -- albeit relatively minor data elements -- failed to stop the market freefall. (To be sure, the markets may have tanked further if the statistics had been more grim.)

Let’s look at what we saw:

• Pending home sales index registered its largest monthly gain in six-and-a-half years, moving to its highest level in 15 months. (The pending home sales index had been a good indicator of the movement in existing home sales, but began to diverge six months ago with sales dropping even as the pending sale index rose.)
• The Mortgage Bankers’ Association’s application index increased for the sixth time in the last seven weeks.
• Initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ended October 4 were down 20,000, the first decline in four weeks (though continuing claims rose for the third week in a row, to the highest level since June 2003).
• The August balance of trade deficit narrowed slightly from July and import prices, an important determinant of consumer prices, declined in September from August, the second consecutive month-to-month dip.

That’s not to say all the news was good.

• A Federal Reserve report Tuesday showed the first monthly decline in consumer credit since January 1998. The report could be read as either good or bad: that consumers are digging themselves out of debt, or that they’re not spending, the latter being the grease of the nation’s economic engine. While revolving -- credit card -- debt dipped very slightly, just 0.1%, term debt, largely auto loans, fell five times as fast, 0.5%.
• On Tuesday as well, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (“JOLTS”) report was mixed showing an increase in hiring in August but an increase in separations and a drop in job openings. Layoffs in August, per JOLTS, experienced the largest month-over-month increase in four years to the highest level since the survey began in December 2000.

The reports, though, had to compete with almost daily announcements of new efforts to correct and stabilize the economy with some suggestions that the frequency of the announcements themselves contributed to the instability.

In the week to come, there will be some more major data releases led by reports Wednesday on retail sales and wholesale prices and followed Thursday by the monthly report on consumer price index changes. The CPI report will be important not only for the Federal Reserve’s inflation watch, but for Social Security recipients whose cost-of-living increase will be calculated using the data reported Thursday. For July and August (the first two months of the quarter used to compute the increase) the index is up 0.7%. (It was up 0.2% in the first two months of the quarter a year ago and wound up increasing 0.6 %.)

The other telling number of the week will be Wednesday’s report on September retail sales, expected to show a decline both with and without autos. Retail sales represent about 40% of total consumer spending which is about 70% of the total economy. Quarter-to-date, retail sales are down 0.8%; a negative number Wednesday would virtually lock in a negative report for Gross Domestic Product for the third quarter (to be reported October 30). GDP was last negative in the fourth quarter of 2007.

While the data reports will increase both in quantity and significance, the number of scheduled speeches by Federal Reserve officials is also up sharply.

Mark Lieberman is the senior economist for the Fox Business Network. Prior to joining FOX, he served as first vice president and manager of economic analysis and research at Washington Mutual in New York. Before that, he served as senior vice president at Dime Savings Bank of New York (which was later acquired by Washington Mutual), where he specialized in credit and risk management. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York Association for Business Economics. He has a degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.