NEW YORK – Wall Street is still on course to end 2006 in the plus column, but it's too early to pop the champagne corks.
Investors will comb through this week's jobs report for November and other data to see if the U.S. economy and corporate profits will be able to withstand the fallout from a slowdown in housing and the dollar's slide.
Last week, unexpected declines in two closely watched indexes – one of Midwestern business activity and the other of U.S. manufacturing – bolstered hopes that the Federal Reserve may want to forestall an acute economic slowdown by cutting interest rates sometime soon.
Just how soon is the question. Investors hope the answer might lie in this week's stream of numbers.
“I expect trading to be subdued, with generally a cautious tone,” said Frederic Dickson, market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co., in Lake Oswego, Ore. “Investors are going to be on alert, waiting for Friday's jobs report.”
Economists polled by Reuters expect U.S. nonfarm payrolls to add 110,000 jobs in November, after October's gain of 92,000. They're forecasting an increase in the U.S. unemployment rate to 4.5 percent in November from 4.4 percent in October.
But if November payroll growth falls below 100,000, investors could become more concerned about the economy's health, analysts said.
That anxiety, though, is not likely to derail the stock market's momentum toward a higher finish for the year.
“The jobs report will be key because people will be looking for further evidence the economy is weakening and that would add more fuel to the fire that a rate cut is something that would happen sooner rather than later,” said Sam Rahman, portfolio manager at Baring Asset Management Inc. in Boston.
On Friday, U.S. interest-rate futures indicated that markets were pricing in a 64 percent chance of a rate cut in the first quarter of 2007.
Those odds were up from 52 percent factored in before the Institute for Supply Management reported that its index of national factory activity fell below 50 in November for the first time in 3½ years, undercutting forecasts for a tiny gain.
On Friday, a drop in the Institute for Supply Management's key index proved stunning enough to send major U.S. stock indexes lower on the first trading session of December. Comments from a Federal Reserve official saying more interest-rate hikes may be required to curb menacing inflation added to the downside bias.
But with only four weeks to go in the year, the Dow is up 13.78 percent for 2006 so far, while the S&P 500 is up 11.89 percent and the Nasdaq is up 9.43 percent.
Although the barrage of economic data could cause some apprehension, analysts say it's likely that the stock market will add to its gains as investors begin positioning themselves for the new year and a possible cut in interest rates.
“The main thing that Wall Street is looking for from the economic numbers is what the impact on earnings is going to be and what the impact on demand is going to be,” said Christopher Zook, chairman and chief investment officer at CAZ Investments in Houston, Texas.
“The Santa Claus rally could come around the last week of Christmas. It's much more liquidity-driven, with the amount of money coming in at the end of the year.”
