Whereas last week was stone silent with the exception of big headline pops courtesy of the FOMC, the current week lacks any of those superstar performances, but makes up for it with a steady and reasonably busy pace of economic data and events.  Highlights include plenty economic data, the 2/5/7 Treasury Auction cycle, and yet another EU Summit, this time to discuss moving closer to fiscal unity.

You might wonder--with an EU Summit boasting such a seemingly important agenda--why we would say that the week ahead "lacks superstar performances," and indeed it's a fair question.  The EU Summit on Thursday and Friday COULD produce some seriously market moving headlines, but there are a few reasons that we wouldn't liken the EU Summit to recent FOMC events.

Firstly, we've had enough...  There comes a point, even in the realm of mostly objective journalism that the people pressing the keys that make these letters ultimately appear on your screen have reached the end of their figurative ropes with certain goings-on.  "EU Summits" are one of those things.  Enough with the summits...  We'll get excited about these again (maybe) if something momentous transpires.  More from Reuters:

Having once hoped this week's summit could be a turning point for the EU debt crisis, financial markets have toned down expectations of concrete progress.  "We believe it will conclude with further general support for the development of a roadmap towards tighter fiscal union, but with significant preconditions attached to various stages of the timeline," said analysts at Barclays.  "We doubt that concerns about the method for the pooling of national sovereignty can be sufficiently resolved in detail, implying there will be further deliberations during the second half of the year."  (full story)

Secondly, the chances for momentous things transpiring at this week's summit are lessened due to the untimely medical issues with two of the key participants.  Reuters tells us more:

Illness means both Greece's new prime minister and finance minister will miss an anxiously awaited summit of European leaders later this week and delayed a visit by the country's international lenders.  The news was a blow to Athens' attempts to ease the terms of its bailout in the teeth of German opposition, as well as an untimely complication for a summit that some hoped would take new steps to grapple with the region's debt crisis.  According to a document prepared for the June 28-29 meeting, European leaders will discuss specific steps towards a cross-border banking union, closer fiscal integration and the possibility of a debt redemption fund.  But Prime Minister Antonis Samaras underwent eye surgery on Saturday and Vassilis Rapanos is in hospital after suffering from nausea before he could be sworn in as finance minister. (full story)

So when considering the guest list for this week's market-movers party, we'll just have to keep the EU Summit in the back of our minds as a tentative RSVP with a well-established pattern of flakiness.  Maybe it shows up, maybe it doesn't. 

But it's not tremendously different with any of the domestic data really.  Even the reports coming out this week that COULD move markets aren't guaranteed to cause a stir.  Given that the Fed has forcefully reiterated that QE3 is imminent pending deterioration in economic data, particularly that which speaks to employment, we certainly can't tune out domestic economic data.  But we've seen somewhat lackluster data recently and are left with the sense that the Fed is looking for incrementally more crapiness.

To that end, it's not so much about any ONE of the reports seen in this week's economic calendar below, but rather about fleshing out a bigger picture that either accelerates or gives pause to the recent bout of increasing gloominess.  Because of that, a week of reports that all paint a similar picture in similar ways is a whole lot more meaningful than one or two of the reports missing big on either side of expectations.  It's all about consensus here.