Before the bell: Futures higher ahead of employment, manufacturing, housing data

Posted Jul 1st 2009 7:37AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Before the Bell, International Markets, Market Matters, Economic Data, Oil, Housing

U.S. stock futures were higher Wednesday morning as stocks were ready to start off the third quarter on a positive note. However, several key economic reports are due out this morning, including reports on manufacturing, employment and housing. Recently, manufacturing has shown improvement in other parts of the world.

Stocks finished the second quarter Tuesday on a down note, but that couldn't erase the advances indices made during the quarter with the Dow Jones Industrial Average finishing the second quarter up 11 percent, the S&P 500 rose 15 percent and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 20 percent.

Overseas, Asian stock markets were mixed on the first day of the second half of trading with economic surveys from the U.S., Japan and China showing that recovery is going to be long and slow affecting sentiment. European markets gained in early trading.

On the economic front, the first report today will be out at 8:15 a.m. EDT, and that will be ADP employment change for June. Economists expect the report to show private-sector employers have cut 394,000 jobs from their payrolls in June after cutting 532,000 in May. [Update 9:10 am: ADP report showed the pace of U.S. job losses has slowed but the labor market is expected to remain weak.]

Next, at 10:00 a.m., May pending home sales is due out from the National Association of Realtors. It is forecast to be unchanged.
At the same time, the Institute for Supply Management will release its June manufacturing index, which is expected to have risen to 44.6 from 42.8 in May, according to Briefing.com.
Still at that time, the Commerce Department will release May construction spending, which is expected to have fallen.
Finally, at 10:30 a.m., weekly crude oil inventories report from the Energy Information Administration are due out. Oil prices climbed over $71 a barrel ahead of the report, but following a similar report from the American Petroleum Institute that showed inventories dropped, suggesting demand may have picked up.
Auto and truck sales from car manufacturers are due out throughout the day. Ford said recently it expected to show it grabbed market share.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-01-2009 @ 9:01AM

clikdawg said...

Well, pick a set of numbers on dat job loss thang:

In a CNNMoney.com article this morning headlined "Job Market Shows Some Improvement", the second paragraph cites ADP as claiming " ... private-sector employers cut 473,000 jobs in June, a 2.5% improvement from the revised 485,000 drop in May ... " -- noting that "the June job cut total was more than expected."

(That 532,000 May loss was revised downward to 485,000 by ADP; so things aren't quite as rosy.)

Perhaps you should have used Paragraph 8, wherein Challenger, Gray, & Christmas(!) proudly announced a mere 72,393 jobs cut -- a whopping 33% decline from May!

Then again, skipping down to the very last paragraph shows that Thursday's US Labor Department report " ... is expected to show that the economy shed 363,000 jobs in June, slightly more than the 345,000 reported for May, according to a consensus estimate of economists compiled by Briefing.com. The unemployment rate is predicted to rise to 9.6% from 9.4%"

Job market keeps improving at this rate, well ...