The Week Ahead

Here are some events to look for this week as you prepare your forex trades:

Monday: The Conference Board's index of leading economic indicators is due in the morning. LEI is expected to have risen 0.7% in August after having risen 0.6% in July, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

Tuesday: The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) releases its July home price index after the start of trading. The index is expected to have risen 0.5% after rising 0.5% in June.

The Federal Reserve begins its two-day interest rate policy setting meeting with a decision expected Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is set to testify before the House Financial Services committee on regulatory reform, starting at around 9:30 a.m. ET.

The Fed is widely expected to hold the fed funds rate, a key short-tem interest rate, at historic lows near zero on Wednesday, with an announcement due at 2:15 p.m. ET. But investors will be more focused on what the bankers say about their "exit strategy" as they seek to wind down programs that pumped trillions into the economy to cushion the blow of the recession.

The weekly crude oil inventories report is also due in the morning.

Thursday: The existing home sales report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is due shortly after the start of trading. August sales are expected to have risen to a 5.33 million unit annual rate from a 5.24 million unit rate in July. July sales were up 7.2% from the previous month, the largest monthly gain on record, going back to 1999.

The weekly jobless claims report from the Labor Department is due before the start of trading. 550,000 Americans are expected to have filed new claims for unemployment, versus 545,000 claims the week before. Continuing claims, a measure of people who have received benefits for a year or more, likely fell to 6.188 million from 6.230 million the week before.

Also Thursday, the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh gets underway. The Group of 20 leading developed and emerging countries will discuss the ongoing efforts to stabilize economies after the financial market meltdown.