Stronger Job, Factory Data Are Anticipated

Investors will straggle back from a weekend of turkey leftovers and daunting lines at cash registers to a fresh month on Wall Street and more data that point to a strengthening economy, analysts say.

Analysts expect reports this week to point to improvements in the job market as well as in the nation’s manufacturing and services sectors in November.

A hectic weekend of shopping also will grab the limelight this week, as investors search for evidence that consumers are spending heavily this holiday season and helping stoke the economic recovery.

“Between now and Christmas, it’s really going to be about how companies individually are doing, in what for many of them is a make-or-break time of year,” said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management.

The November payrolls number due Friday will be the main event among the reports expected. But investors also will eye weekly employment data and surveys of the manufacturing and services sectors for hints that economic recovery is robust enough to support the big run-up in stock prices this year.

Nonfarm payrolls are expected to have added 135,000 jobs in November, and the U.S. unemployment rate is forecast to remain at 6.0%, according to economists polled by Reuters. In October, nonfarm payrolls gained 126,000 jobs.

The report on first-time claims for unemployment benefits, due Thursday, is expected to show that claims dipped to 350,000 for the week ended Nov. 29 -- a holiday-shortened week -- from 351,000 claims in the previous week.

The U.S. labor market has been one area of concern, with job growth lagging behind in an otherwise rosy economic picture.

Expectations are high that the Institute for Supply Management will release healthy manufacturing and services sector indexes, due today and Wednesday, respectively -- after data released last week showed that factory activity in the Midwest expanded for a seventh straight month.

The ISM national index of manufacturing for November is expected to climb to 58.0 from October’s 57.0, reflecting an increase in output by U.S. factories, according to economists polled by Reuters.

But the ISM national index of nonmanufacturing activity, which gauges the output of the U.S. services sector, is expected to inch down to 64.3 from October’s 64.7.

From Reuters