The Week in Preview: Housing Data, Lennar's Earnings and More

Housing steps into the spotlight again this coming week. The release of the National Association of Homebuilders Housing Market Index starts out the week on Monday morning. Then on Tuesday morning, look for housing starts data from August. Release of the July FHFA House Price Index is scheduled for Wednesday. And numbers for existing home sales and for new home sales in August are due out Thursday and Friday, respectively. Overall, the housing market is expected to have continued to lose momentum in August, but less dramatically than in July.Also on the economic calendar this week: Tuesday's FOMC meeting on interest rates, the Conference Board's Leading Economic Indicators Index for August on Thursday, initial jobless claims for last week, and durable goods orders data for August on Friday. No significant changes from the Fed are anticipated, but the leading economic indicators may rise a bit.For two of next week's most prominent quarterly reports -- General Mills (NYSE: GIS) and Nike (NYSE: NKE) -- the consensus expectations from analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters are for narrow earnings declines. However, both companies have tended to beat earnings expectations in recent quarters.On the other hand, analysts are looking for publishing software provider Adobe Systems (Nasdaq: ADBE) to report that its fiscal third-quarter earnings jumped 28.5% from a year ago to 49 cents per share. During the three months that ended in August, San Jose-based Adobe repurchased stock and announced an acquisition, and revenue for that period is expected to total $847.1 million. That's a 41.1% increase from the same period of last year. And analysts also expect sequential and year-over-year revenue growth in the fourth quarter. Adobe has exceeded earnings expectations in the past five quarters.See the rest here.