The Week Ahead: All Eyes On U.S. Job Market

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, which could ease fears of a marked deterioration in labour market conditions after a surprise stumble in job growth in March.

Tom Lydon submits: Exchange traded funds (ETFs) turned flat on Thursday after mixed economic data raised concerns about the labor market and higher inflation.

optionMONSTER submits: By Bryan McCormick The calendar is not only full today, but it also features some critically important reports that are likely to move markets.

Andrew Wilkinson submits: U.S. treasury futures remain buoyant and close to the highest traded prices this week after a disappointing reading for retail sales data during the final month of 2009. Heading into the report bond yields remained pressured to the downside after the Fed’s Beige Book yesterday reported creeping recovery across a further two regions bringing ongoing expansion to 10 of the 12 Fed regions.

Bill Luby submits: Friday’s data dump of nonfarm payrolls, the ISM non-manufacturing survey and factory orders capped a big week for economic data and since there is an unusually long stretch until the next data points are released (Thursday’s jobless claims), this seems like a good time to update my ongoing chart of economic data relative to expectations.

(To be updated on Thursday with the release of official BLS data.) Today, the Wisconsin DWD took the unusual -- one might say unprecedented [1] [2] -- step of announcing their estimates of what they call “actual job numbers” (see press release

Reuters - The number of U.S.