Tom Hanna's Lifestream

This week will be a busy one with several labor market indicators, news from the manufacturing sector including January auto sales, pending home sales data and consumption spending. The week opens and closes with indicators from the important areas of employment and the consumer sector. Monday, the Conference Board releases its Help Wanted Online Data series, which has been weak for several months preceeding the big job losses of November and December. Also Monday, the Commerce Department will release Personal Income and Spending figures for December and the auto makers will report on January auto sales. Friday will end the week with the all important January Employment Situation Report from the Labor Department and the Federal Reserve reporting on Consumer Credit. Wednesday and Thursday bring three more monthly employment indicators plus the weekly jobless claims and Thursday throws in another consumer confidence indicator, the RBC CASH Index. In other manufacturing news, the ISM will release its Manufacturing Report on Business on Monday and the Commerce Department will report on Factory Orders on Thursday. The ISM's Nonmanufacturing Report is due out Wednesday, for a look at the service and retail sectors. The big number everyone will be watching this week will be Friday's jobs report, looking for any deviation from an expected 7.5 to 7.6% unemployment rate. Smart money will watch the earlier employment indicators closely to adjust expectations for Friday. Really smart money will hedge the short term effects of this report and pay attention to the Pending Home Sales report due out Tuesday from the National Association of Realtors. With the unexpected jump in existing home sales for December, continued strength in mortgage applications and some thawing in mortgage markets, this number could be an important leading indicator of the housing market. One sign to watch for is a normalization of the ratio of pending sales to existing sales as a sign that sales not closing are returning to normal or near normal.

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Indicators

December Construction Spending from the Commerce Department December Personal Income and Spending from the Commerce Department January Manufacturing Report on Business and Purchasing Managers Index from the Institute for Supply Management January Motor Vehicle Sales US Help Wanted Online Data Series from the Conference Board

Weekly Redbook Retail Index December Pending Home Sales from the National Association of Realtors

January Challenger Job Cut Report January ADP Employment Report Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association Weekly Petroleum Inventory Report and This Week in Petroleum from the Energy Information Administration

January Monster Employment Index January CASH Index from RBC Leading Index for Japan from the Conference Board Weekly Jobless Claims report from the Employment and Training Administration Weekly Money Supply (M1 and M2) from the Federal Reserve Weekly Natural Gas Report from the Energy Information Administration

December Consumer Credit from the Federal Reserve January Employment Situation Report from the Labor Department

Treasury Auctions and Announcements

11 AM: 4-Week T-Bill Announcement 1 PM: 3-Month and 6- Month T-Bill Auctions

1 PM: 4-Week T-Bill Auction

9 AM: Treasury Refunding Announcement 9 AM: 30-Year Bond Announcement 11 AM: 3-Year and 10-Year Treasury Note Announcements

11 AM: 3-Month and 6-Month T-Bill Announcements 11 AM: 52-Week T-Bill Announcement

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*See more information on the Financial Roadmap series here. Earnings reports are companies of interest, NOT recommendations. You're reading a post from Financial Options, hopefully in your feed reader and not on a scraper site. Click through for the original and more like it. Financial Roadmap: The Week Ahead February 2 to 6, 2009