Next week is a very light one for market data, so traders will have to look elsewhere for direction.

Canadian markets are closed Monday for the Victoria Day holiday, but Tuesday will bring the release of the consumer price index for April .

Wednesday will bring retail trade numbers. “Next week’s monthly data will likely further confirm that the Canadian economy continued to post a strong recovery in the first quarter of 2002 — although another week of mixed data may be in store,” says TD Bank.

TD predicts that retail sales are likely to have fallen slightly in March. However, it expects that consumer spending remained robust in the opening quarter of the year.

“Retail trade looks to be a mixed bag for March, with a drop led by auto sales masking growth elsewhere. If so, March would set up to be a fairly soft month for GDP, taking only a bit of an edge off an otherwise very strong quarter,” says CIBC World Markets.

“If anything, the consumer price report will provide financial markets with little reason to expect the Bank of Canada to back off in its tightening schedule,” says TD Bank. “Another rise in gasoline prices last month is likely to have given another energy-induced lift to the CPI in April. However, the Bank of Canada’s closely watched core inflation rate probably remained close to its 2% target.”

“The Bank of Canada tightening course depends less on current CPI than its forecast for several quarter1s hence, so neither an energy-led monthly jump, nor a cooling in the underlying core rate, will sway them from another quarter-point hike in June,” notes CIBC.

In the U.S., there’s no holiday but the data flow is just as sparse. Durable goods orders will be reported on Thursday. Friday will bring news of first quarter GDP.

“In the U.S., a light week for data won’t give much direction to markets,” says CIBC World Markets. “First quarter GDP will look even more impressive with a 6-handle, but markets didn1t seem that impressed with 5.8% anyway. The durable goods report is too volatile to have much chance of calling it ahead of time, but we1re looking for a better than consensus rise due to a firmer automotive component.” If the upside calls come through, it could be a good week for stocks and a bad one for bonds, CIBC says.

BMO Nesbitt Burns says that the U.S. economic data is cooling a bit. “Durable goods bookings could be held back by reduced transportation orders in April. Otherwise, a bounceback to 0.5% growth in non-transportation orders is expected.”

Notwithstanding the lack of interesting economic data out next week, there will be some big companies reporting earnings. Bombardier Inc., CIBC, and Hudson’s Bay Co. all report on Tuesday, along with Meota Resources, Paramount Energy and Penn West Petroleum.

Power Financial and Royal Bank report Wednesday. On Thursday, Bonavista Petroleum reports, as does Ketch Energy, Power Corp. and several REITs.