Major U.S. stock exchanges closed Monday in observance of the New Year's holiday the day before. Heading the slate of economic indicators this week are nonfarm payrolls data and the latest unemployment rate from the U.S. Department of Labor on Friday.
The report will determine whether 2011 ends with continuing improvement in the job market. In the prior month, the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.6%, the lowest level since March 2009. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires predict payrolls will rise by 155,000 but the unemployment rate, which is determined by a separate survey, will tick up to 8.7%.
The Institute for Supply Management releases data on manufacturing activity Tuesday and services Thursday, and the U.S. Census Bureau's factory orders report comes Wednesday. U.S. retailers will report December's same-store sales results, the broadest indication yet of how the key holiday-shopping season played out.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect same-store sales to climb across store categories for an average increase of 4.3%. They expect discounters like Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) and Target Corp. (TGT) to report the strongest growth at 6% on average, with apparel retailers like Gap Inc. (GPS) and Limited Brands Inc. (LTD) expected to have the weakest at 2%. The auto industry will report its December U.S. sales on Wednesday.
Online automotive-information provider Edmunds.com expects December new car sales to rise 24% from November, although transactions slowed down by the middle of the month. It came down to the wire last Friday, but in the final minute of 2011 trading, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index closed the year virtually unchanged from where it closed in 2010. The S&P 500 closed Friday down 5.42 points, or 0.43%, to 1257.60.
The full-year decline of 0.04 of a point, or 0.0028%, was the smallest annual move since at least 1947, according to preliminary S&P calculations. S&P Indices scrambled after the close of trading to determine an extra decimal place in the 1947 data to figure out which was the slimmer move of the two years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fared better in 2011. The Dow finished down 69.48 points, or 0.57%, to 12217.56 on Friday, but closed the year up 5.53%.
The blue-chip index closed the fourth quarter up 12%, its biggest quarterly percentage jump since 2003. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 8.59 points, or 0.3%, to 2605.15, and closed the year down 1.8%. The year was defined by fits and starts related to Europe's sovereign-debt crisis and global economic growth concerns, prompting investors to flock to defensive and dividend-paying stocks. But Friday's moves were slim, as a dearth of news and low trading volume gave investors little incentive to take a stand ahead of the long New Year-holiday weekend.
market news Tuesday January 3 2012 :
The United States will join the session at 15:00 GMT with the Construction Spending Monthly Index for November, which could have expanded by 0.5% from 0.8%.
The United States will also release the ISM Manufacturing for December, with expectations the index could have expanded to 53.2 from 52.7.
At 19:00 GMT the Federal Reserve will provide markets with the Minutes of the FOMC last meeting.
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