Wall Street Hoping For Better Returns This Week
March 6, 2008
As the fears of recession are at there highest, investors are looking to economic data scheduled to be released on the Monday for a brighter outlook. At this stage, investors seem to be quite used to the declining employment market service sector. Some analysts have stated that investors are, however, willing to turn a blind eye to these factors and start investing once again. Wall Street is clinging to the hope that economic reports due this week will indicate some upward momentum, as fears are that reports of another downward moving quarter will once again turn investors away.
The week is scheduled to start off with the Institute for Supply Management’s report on the nation’s manufacturing in the month of February. Forecasts are, however, that these reports will show a decrease in production, especially after the slight increase the industry saw in January. Another report due this week is the ISM’s calculation of the Service Sector activity for February. Economists are again predicting another decline , unfortunately right on the back of the dramatic plunge that was witnessed in the previous month.
The turmoil in the market is only reinforced by the reductions that occurred in the manufacturing industry in December; which was the first time such a decrease had been seen since January 2007. The service sector also showed large-scale reductions in the past few months which is the first time it has done so for the last five years.
However, the most important report to be released this week for Wall Street is employment figures for February. This data is scheduled to be released on the last day of the week. Friday’s report is, irrespective of the data in it, going to pull the investors in one way or the other. Though when one group of economists in the country are predicting a small rise in payrolls, another group are saying that payrolls are likely to dip and make it two months in a row of reductions. Speculations of this nature are fueled by the Labor Department of USA announcing that net jobs for the nation saw a loss for January. This was the first time this had happened in the last four years.
However, the former group of the economists are of the view that the Labor Department might actually revise the January report if they later find out later that jobs had actually risen during the month. This has occurred previously, in August of 2007, and the labor market had then revised figures one month later. According to analysts, Wall Street has its fingers crossed for good figures in the coming economic data, either way.
Comments
Got something to say?
Advertisement
