Looking Ahead: Week of April 16 to April 20
The consensus results are taken from Standard & Poors MMS Weekly Economic Survey.

Tuesday
Economists are predicting that the consumer price index will post a gain of 0.1 percent in March, less than February's 0.3 percent hike. (Forecast range: 0.0 to 0.3 percent) At the same time, the CPI excluding food and energy prices should post a 0.2 percent hike for the month. If this forecast were realized, it would be slightly less than the 0.3 percent monthly increases recorded in the past couple of months. (Forecast range: 0.1 to 0.2 percent)

Housing starts should decrease 1.0 percent in March to a 1.63 million-unit rate after declining 0.4 percent in February. Mortgage rates are down from a year ago, but have stabilized over the past few months. (Forecast range: 1.55 to 1.68 million-unit rate)

Economists are predicting that the index of industrial production will decline 0.2 percent in March, after posting a 0.6 percent drop in each of the two previous months. (Forecast range: -0.5 to +0.4 percent) The capacity utilization rate is expected to edge down a tick to 79.1 percent in March. (Forecast range: 78.7 to 79.5 percent)

Wednesday
The market consensus shows that the international trade balance on goods and services will narrow marginally in February to $-33.0 billion from January's shortfall of $-33.3 billion. If this forecast is realized, then the trade deficit will not be worse in the first quarter of 2001 relative to the fourth quarter of 2000. This means that the foreign sector won't be a drag on GDP growth - and could even be a positive force for the quarter. (Forecast range: $-32 to $-34 billion)

Market players are expecting the index of leading indicators to decline 0.3 percent in March, the third straight monthly drop. In the old days, three consecutive declines used to predict a recession. However, the new revamped series has a different mechanism to predict downturns that correspond to a particular magnitude of decline in the index. So far, that hasn't been reached. (Forecast range: -0.5 to +0.3 percent)

Thursday
Market participants are expecting new jobless claims to decrease 2,000 in the week ended April 14 from last week's 392,000 level. (Forecast range: -12,000 to +8,000)

The Philadelphia Fed's business outlook survey is predicted to stand at -20.0 in April from a level of -23.5 in March. Any negative reading on this index means that the manufacturing sector is still contracting. (Forecast range: -27.0 to -15.0)