Tuesday continues a busy earnings week, while data streams out of Asia and Europe. Nonetheless it will be a relatively quiet day, as Coca-Cola and Walt Disney report. There are no major economic reports scheduled for release in the U.S., although December consumer credit will be announced.

Here’s what you need to know.

• The U.K. starts the day off early with retail sales at 7:01 p.m. EST on Monday evening. Sales are seen declining 0.8 percent in January, after a 2.2 percent gain the month before. 
• Philippine CPI will be announced at 8:00 p.m. EST, with expectations for the index to show 0.5 percent increases in December.
• Czech unemployment is out at 3:00 a.m. EST, with economists polled by Bloomberg expecting the jobless rate to jump 50 basis points to 9.1 percent for January.
• At the same time, industrial production for both Hungary and Denmark will be announced.  Output is seen expanding by 9.3 percent year-on-year in Hungary, while Denmark sees 0.3 percent growth sequentially for December. Also at 3:00 a.m. EST, Taiwan will announce total exports for January. Exports are seen falling 17.0 percent from year ago levels.
• Industrial production continues to roll out over the next several hours in Europe. At 4:00 a.m. EST Norway is expected to announce production grew by a slower rate than in November, at 0.1 percent. Estimates are not yet available for Portugal production, which last grew by 0.5 percent.
• Europe’s largest economy, Germany, will announce industrial production at 6:00 a.m. EST. The country is expected to see a reversal in production, with no growth in December after a 0.6 percent contraction in November.
• At 8:30 a.m. EST, North American gets into the fray when Canada announces new building permits. Permits are expected to increase 1.0 percent in December, after a 3.6 percent decline in November. 
• U.S. announcements start at 10:00 a.m. EST., with JOLTs Job Openings and economic sentiment. Job openings are seen expanding to 3.25 million from 3.16 million. Meanwhile, optimism as measured by Investor’s Business Daily is seen jumping to 48.6 from 47.5. A level below 50 indicates pessimism. 
• Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke will testify at 10:00 a.m. EST on the state of the economy. Find coverage of his testimony live on Money Game. 
• Last on the agenda is consumer credit in the U.S. at 3:00 p.m. EST. Economists polled by Bloomberg see credit expanding by $7 billion, a decline from last month’s surprise $20.3 billion jump. 

U.S. corporates reporting quarterly results on Tuesday include names like Coca-Cola and Walt Disney. Below, a roundup of tomorrow’s big announcers.

Coca-Cola (KO): $0.77
AGCO (AGCO): $1.33
Western Union (WU): $0.40
CBRE Group (CBG): $0.44
Walt Disney (DIS): $0.71
DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT): $0.37
OpenTable (OPEN): $0.30
Panera Bread (PNRA): $1.42
Ralcorp Holdings (RAH): $1.35
Hartford Financial Services Group (HIG): $0.60

Consensus estimates provided by Bloomberg. 

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The big thing that would surprise people in Europe this year is growth.

And there’s more evidence that there’s some kind of pulse beating.

Last week after some decent PMI number, Goldman raised its 2012 GDP outlook from -0.8% to -0.4%.

The latest: German factory orders jumped 1.7% sequentially, nicely ahead of the 1.0% consensus.

Here’s a great chart of German factory orders vs. industrial production, courtesy of Markit.

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The Nevada Caucuses have been happening all day today and the result will surely be a Romney win. 

He’s the front-runner and presumptive nominee.  

The only questions that matter are these: 

How big does Romney win? 

Will Ron Paul come in second and confirm the wisdom of his campaign focusing on caucus states? 

Will Gingrich look viable at all after two consecutive drubbings, and the horrible press about his disorganized campaign? 

Over a quarter of GOP caucuses-goers are Mormons. How much of the non-Mormon vote does Romney get? The state has been rocked by unemployment and the worst of the housing bust. It will be fascinating to see how many of these voters Romney can get. 

Results: may take until morning. Roughly things stand at this with 15 percent reporting: 

Mitt Romney – 39

Ron Paul – 19

Newt Gingrich – 27

RIck Santorum – 14

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Today’s Non-Farm Payrolls report was one of the best, most-bulletproof non-farm payrolls report we’ve seen in awhile.

However, there are two tiny concerns, especially for market folks.

First is that this probably pushes any Fed stimulus off further down the road. Markets may not be crazy about lack of QE3.

Also, and this was just pointed out on BloombergTV, is that suddenly the fight over the payroll tax extension gets a little dicier.

That’s not just a market issue. That’s an economic issue, and if that doesn’t get extended, then that’s de-stimulus.

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• Why People Are Getting Super-Nervous About Today’s Jobs Report
• THE JOBS REPORT CRUSHES EXPECTATIONS AT 243K, UNEMPLOYMENT FALLS TO 8.3%
• Two Incredible Stats From Today’s Jobs Report

House sales fell 1 per cent in 2011, with just 869,000 residential properties sold, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

In January 2011, traditionally the weakest month for property transactions, just 45,000 houses were sold.

However, the market did improve at the end of the year, with 76,000 sold in December.

The property market has been in a slump for the last three years, with high inflation, high unemployment and stringent lending criteria making it impossible for many people to afford to buy their first home or move house.

Many first-time buyers are unable to raise the high deposits demanded by mortgage lenders, leaving them trapped in expensive rental properties.

Property sales in 2011 were around 50 per cent lower than they were in 2007, prior to the onset of the credit crunch and were nearing the record low level of 2009, when just 848,000 homes were sold.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders expects total lending to fall again in 2012, suggesting a further fall in house sales is likely.

Official figures released last week by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) revealed house prices fell by 0.3% in the year to November 2011.

The average UK house price ended the year at £205,796.

However, house prices increased by 0.7 per cent for first-time buyers and the price of new properties increased by 7.7% on average, compared with 2010.

The DCLG’s figures also indicated that the North/South divide in house prices is widening, with the North West experiencing the largest fall in property prices while the smallest was in the South East.

High inflation and rising unemployment are expected to lead to a substantial increase in home repossessions this year.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders expects a 22 per cent rise in repossessions in 2012 to 45,000.

The economic gap between cities doing relatively well during the economic downturn and those that have been hard hit by the recession, is expected to widen.

A report by the Centre for Cities, a research and policy organisation focused on improving the economic performance of UK cities, suggests that a combination of weak growth in the private sector and massive public sector job cuts is affecting different parts of the country very differently.

Cities such as Aberdeen, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London and Milton Keynes are expected to weather the downturn well, while Newport, Sunderland, Hull, Doncaster and Swansea are among the worst affected cities.

Many of the struggling cities are located in the north of England and the Midlands.

Employment is a key factor in determining how well cities are performing, with those with a high percentage of their population employed in professions such as law, finance and accountancy doing much better than those where the private sector is less dynamic.

Cities such as Aberdeen and Cambridge have a high number of business start-ups and tend to be more innovative, while the poorer performing cities have proportionally more people claiming Jobseekers Allowance and working in the public sector.

The Centre for Cities is calling on the government to support struggling cities by providing high-quality training so that their residents have the skills they need to find jobs and start businesses.

Alexandra Jones, Chief Executive of Centre for Cities, said: “During 2012 cities should take the lead in shaping their local economies, and the Government should give them the financial and political powers they need to make the right decisions for growth.

“Where cities face greater social and economic challenges, the government should offer support to help places adapt and respond to a rapidly changing global economy.”

Pessimism over the UK economy persists with the latest figures expected to show that the economy contracted in the fourth-quarter.

The Bank of England is expected to announce a further round of Quantitative Easing as early as next month.

Asian markets moved higher across the board in early trading.

The biggest news out of those markets comes from Australia, which shed 29.3K jobs in December compared to expectations of a 10K increase. But unemployment declined from 5.3% to 5.2%, and the number of people looking for part-time work also declined.

These numbers may be explained by declining participation in an aging workforce. Australia’s population is aging, and the participation rate declined by 0.3% in December. 

UPDATE: Those gains are growing across the board, except in Australia where they’re holding steady.

Check it out:

Japan’s Nikkei: +1.32%

Korea’s Kospi: +1.09%

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200: +0.35%

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng: +1.27%

U.S. futures have also moved slightly positive.

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Complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) from consumers who were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI), increased by 57 per cent to 30,301 between October and December 2010, compared with the previous three months.

PPI complaints now make up 54% of the FOS’s workload.

The FOS, which only deals with PPI complaints that financial firms have failed to resolve, ruled in favour of the customer in 68 per cent of the cases it dealt with in the final three months of 2011.

This is a significant fall from between July and September 2011, when it ruled in favour of the customer in 92 per cent of cases.

Millions of PPI policies were routinely sold with mortgages, loans and credit cards from the 1990s.

The insurance is designed to meet credit payments if the policy holder is unable to pay due to illness or unemployment, but millions of people were sold policies that were invalid because they did not fulfil the qualifying criteria.

Some policies were sold to people who did not need them and many people did not realise that the insurance was optional.

For years the banking industry refused to admit that PPI had been mis-sold, but was forced in May 2011 to adhere to the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA’s) demand that past sales of the policies should be reviewed.

The FSA also said that future sales of PPI should be much more strictly regulated.

Earlier this month the FOS said it was disappointed at the number of customers still waiting for financial companies to deal with their PPI complaints.

It is considering introducing a fee of £350 for dealing with PPI cases, which firms would have to pay in addition to a £500 standard case fee.

The rate of Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation fell to 4.2 per cent in December, from 4.8 per cent in November, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is the third consecutive month that inflation has fallen and December’s figures represents the biggest monthly fall since April 2009.

Inflation is now at its lowest level since June last year and many economists are predicting a continued decline throughout the year.

In November, the Bank of England predicted that inflation would fall below the Government’s inflation target of 2 per cent by the end of this year.

Retailers’ attempts to generate sales by cutting prices in the run-up to Christmas have helped to push inflation down.

The price of clothing and footwear fell by 2.8 per cent between November and December and fuel prices fell by 1.1 pence a litre, although food prices increased by 1.4 per cent.

Although the fall in inflation will help to ease the strain on household incomes, analysts expect consumers to continue to control their spending in the face of continuing uncertainty over jobs and tightening credit conditions.

While there was good news on inflation today, a worrying economic forecast by the Ernst & Young Item Club suggests that the UK economy has fallen into a ‘technical’ recession due to the eurozone crisis and rising unemployment.

The Item Club has cut its GDP growth rate forecast from 1.5% to 0.2% for 2012 and expects unemployment to rise by a further 300,000 this year, to just below three million people

It does not expect the UK economy to recover until CPI inflation drops to 2 per cent late this year.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development expects unemployment to remain above 2.5 million until at least 2016.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has criticised banks and insurance companies for their slow response to payment protection insurance (PPI) compensation claims.

The huge numbers of PPI claims are overwhelming UK banks, with the result that customers are becoming tired of waiting and are taking their cases to the FOS.

The FOS says that number of PPI cases on its books has doubled to 130,000 in the financial year 2012/13, from 60,000 in 2010/11 and this type of case now makes up half of its workload.

Consumers were routinely sold PPI alongside credit cards and loans and were told the policies would cover their repayments in the event of sickness or unemployment.

However many people, including pensioners and the self-employed, were sold policies that were useless to them because they did not meet the qualifying criteria.

Following a High Court ruling in May 2011, more than three million people were eligible for compensation, with the total costs expected to reach up to £9m.

To help it cope with its inflated workload, the FOS wants firms with more than 25 cases of PPI mis-selling made against them to pay an additional fee of £350 fee for each case.

However, it has promised to waive fee for firms with 25 complaints or less.

Tony Boorman, principal ombudsman, said: “It’s disappointing that there’s little finality for significant numbers of consumers who are still waiting for their bank or insurer to deal with their complaint.

“When consumers and businesses alike are tightening their belts and facing uncertainties this is not welcome news for anyone.”

In the first 10 months of 2010 more than £1 billion was paid out in compensation to customers who were mis-sold PPI.