A holiday-shortened week in the United States will have Canadian traders focusing north of the border for direction this week. U.S. markets are closed Monday for President’s Day.

“In the U.S., accounting issues may continue to put a bit of fear into equity markets, at least until we get more real news about the current quarter’s earnings trends,” says CIBC World Markets.

On Tuesday, housing start data is out. Wednesday will bring the U.S. Consumer Price Index, and on Thursday the goods and services balance is due to be reported.

CIBC says that the U.S. CPI is not a real worry at this stage of the cycle. “Housing starts should be brisk given favourable weather and home sales trends. Watch the weekly releases as well to see if jobless claims can manage to continue their march lower.”

BMO Nesbitt Burns says that the risk is that the market is not hopeful enough about inflation. “Our guess is that six months from now inflation will have surprised the markets on the downside. The U.S. holiday-shortened week will see the CPI inflation lead Wednesday’s news with a 0.3% energy-led rise expected. Core CPI should be up about 0.2%.”

In Canada, manufacturing shipment data is out on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Bank of Canada governor David Dodge takes centre stage with a speech to the Canadian Society of New York. Merchandise trade and retail trade numbers are out on Thursday.

TD Bank economists say next week’s relatively busy slate of indicators for Canada will continue to provide a more complete picture of how economy fared in the fourth quarter of 2001. “Retail spending on this side of the border likely held up relatively well during the holiday season, although auto sales did not provide as much of a boost to overall sales in December as in the previous month. While manufacturing shipments surged in November, a repeat performance is unlikely in December and total shipments likely fell back slightly. The international merchandise trade balance also likely fell back in part due to falling commodity prices and anemic U.S. demand for imports in December.”

BMO Nesbitt Burns says that it is still a close call whether or not Canadian GDP managed to avoid a second consecutive quarterly decline in Q4. “Next week will see a wave of indicators for December, which may help settle the debate. Manufacturing shipments and exports are likely to report declines for December, held down by falling industrial prices and a pullback in auto production on the month. However, retail sales are expected to report another solid advance, led by additional gains at auto dealers and department stores. On balance, we believe that robust consumer spending and a red-hot housing industry will be just enough to offset weakness in capital spending and inventories in Q4.”

CIBC predicts that Dodge will stick closely to his recent, optimistic script, “particularly now that he has a strong January jobs figure to back up that assessment.”

On the earnings front next week, the highlight will be the start of the banks’ latest confessions.

Decoma International reports on Monday. Tuesday brings Intrawest. On Wednesday things get busy, with Acetex Corp., AEC, Boardwalk Equities, CPL REIT, Linamar, Loblaw Cos., Macdonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., PanCanadian Energy, and West Fraser Timber all reporting.

Agnico-Eagle Mines reports on Thursday, along with Kingsway Financial, Shermag Inc., TD Bank, and Teknion Corporation.

On Friday, Cambior Inc.reports, as does Rogers Communications and Royal Bank.