Investors won’t have much new economic data to pore over next week. Even fiscal troubles may fade into the background, allowing economy-watchers to focus on the start of earnings season and a flurry of speeches by regional Federal Reserve bank presidents.  Earnings season kicks off next week with two blue-chip reports Alcoa , Dow component and industrial bellwether, reports on Tuesday after the bell. Wall Street consensus pegs the company’s fourth-quarter earnings at 6 cents a share, reversing a loss of 3 cents a share in the fourth-quarter of 2011. (In case you didn’t get the reference in the headline, by the way, let us remind you about how excited Alcoa gets over aluminum.)  On Friday Wells Fargo reports. Earnings season proper gears up the week after.  Additionally, the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas kicks off. While the trade show has lost some of its cachet, it still commands attention in the tech world.  One economic report this upcoming week with big market-moving potential will be the U.S. trade report scheduled for Friday.  Economists will want to gauge the impact of imports and exports on fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth. A narrower real net export figure added to GDP growth in the third quarter.  Forecasters surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect that the November trade gap narrowed to $41.0 billion, from $42.2 billion in October. Falling oil prices probably reduced the level of nominal imports in November.  On the labor front, two reports are scheduled for next week. The weekly jobless claims number, out Thursday, will be the first reading of 2013, but the data may be skewed by office closings for New Year’s Day. The median forecast is for 368,000 jobless claims filed in the week ending Saturday.  Thursday also will see the November report on job openings and labor turnover. Although the data are lagged and not forecast by economists, the Jolts report offers insight into the labor-market churning not captured in the more up-to-date payrolls report.  For next week’s report, economists will want to see whether uncertainty surrounding the “fiscal-cliff” outcome caused businesses to pull back on gross hiring or job openings.  As always, here’s out handy clip-and-save data calendar:  7:30 a.m. ET: NFIB December Small Business Survey 3:00 p.m.: Consumer Credit Nov +$10.3B (4) +$14.2B  Alcoa Apollo Group , Monstanto Schnitzer Steel , IHS, Global Payments  Constellation Brands , Helen of Troy, Ruby Tuesday  8:30: Weekly Jobless Claims: seen: 368,000; last: 372,000 10:00: November Wholesale Inventories: seen: +0.3%; last: +0.6% 10:00: November Job Openings & Labor Turnover survey  8:30: November US Trade Deficit: seen: $41.0 billion; last: $42.2 billion 8:30: December Import Prices: seen: +0.1%; last: -0.9% 2:00 p.m.: December Federal Budget: seen: -$16.3 billion; last: -$86.0 billion (December 2011)  For more MarketBeat and other streaming markets coverage from The Wall Street Journal, point your mobile browser to wsj.com/marketspulse.
Next week brings the first batch of earnings reports, led by bellwethers Alcoa and Wells Fargo; there are also reports on the trade deficit and small-business sentiment.