Week in progress review

Hello, folks. Welcome to the short trading week. Here is a list of reports due out this week and some of my predictions and observations. If Crude Inventories continue to drop rapidly thursday I expect the market to thrash in a most ugly way. The Friday numbers will be looked at as an economic barometer but the market seems confused how to react to economic numbers these days. I continue to expect inflationary trends over the long term. The friday reports should give us a good idea what the economy looks like from the workers point of view and give us insight into the consumer spending trends.

Wednesday, July 5th

• Factory Orders for May report at 10:00am EST.

Thursday, July 6th

• Initial jobless claims reprt at 8:30am EST. Prior numbers were 313,000 and expectations are for similar numbers
  
• ISM Services index for June reports at 10am EST. I expect a slight decrease from the 60.1 of last month, but growth in the services sector should still be strong. (Anything over 50 is a growing segment).
  
• Crude Inventories report at 10:30am EST. Last week saw a large decline (3.3 million barrels) and the market spasmed. I would not be surprised to see the reserves strengthen this week, although summer driving season will still be sucking gas out of the reserves at a higher than average rate. Another decrease of 3.3 million would be significant. Any increase or a decrease of less than a million barrels is a non-event and would show that last weeks panic was unfounded.
  
• Earnings reports: CRMT, DLP, AYI, ISCA, NUHC, TIBX, HORC
  

Friday,

• Average Workweek for June reports at 8:30am EST. This is actually a great number to watch as it has not been manipulated by politicians as much as some of the others (think CPI). As this number increases it leads to more hiring and more income for workers. Most people expect this number to remain stable at 33.8 hrs per week. Even slight changes are significant.
  
• Hourly Earnings for June reports at 8:30am EST. Previous growth was 0.1%, I expect a higher number this time. Increases here tend to go directly into consumer spending, which in turn moves to corporate bottom lines.
  
• Nonfarm Payrolls growth for June reports at 8:30am EST. Expect a tick up from last months 75K to possibly even double that. This number lags the workweek increases.
  
• Unemployment Rate for June reports at 8:30am EST. Expect 4.6-4.7% versus recent 4.6% reports.
  
• Earnings reports: SHLM, QMED