This promises to be a very busy week with a full calendar of economic reports and earnings announcements, so let’s dive right in and highlight some of the more important ones.

Has the housing market hit an absolute bottom yet? Perhaps, but probably not. But there are at least indications however that things could start turning around.

The calendar is noticeably lighter this week, but after all the critical reports last week, it is a nice breather.

Being a writer in the financial industry means that your words often come back to haunt you.

A quick glance at the calendar this week and an instant case of nausea should set in. The week is not only overloaded with reports, but only a few are expected to show improvement.

The December Existing Home Sales report actually surprised to the upside, posting a gain of 6.5 percent versus November. This equates to roughly 290,000 units.

Here’s the bad news: These sales aren’t from eager buyers who got priced out of the market during the run up over the last few years. The buyers are vultures, swooping in and cleaning the carcass. Over 45 percent of the sales were “distressed” according to the report.

That is bad news for the market. It is just the beginning of a viscous cycle with three simple ways you could use to profit.

Latest data from the housing market shows that the misery is set to continue for a while yet. But Christian Hill says investors can still make money by shorting two real estate specific ETFs (IYR, VNQ). A more speculative play is the UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (NYSE:SRS) inverse ETF.

There is a full economic calendar this week, but all eyes will be on the two-day FOMC meeting and the rate decision on Wednesday.

It will be interesting to see how the FOMC approaches this meeting. The current Fed Funds target rate is 0-0.25%, which in and of itself is rather strange. It is a moving target, not a fixed rate. Who determines which rate is used? My guess is this meeting will be used to clarify what the rate is. The Fed will either officially reduce it to 0% in a continued effort to resuscitate the economy, or lock it in at 0.25%. This would at least leave the Fed with one perceived bullet in the gun.

The rest of the…

Everyone has been dumping stocks for the last year and retreating to the relative safety of Treasury notes. But where will we invest when that ride is over? We may soon find out.

The only reports on the calendar this week are housing related, and it got me thinking: what’s left? Pretty much nothing. As the fairy tale goes, the big bad wolf doesn’t even need to huff and puff; the house has already been blown down.