Dollar, Jobs Worries Linger in Coming Week

Updated from 11/07/09

Update includes news of Northrop's sale of its TASC advisory unit.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- An unemployment rate above 10% and continued dollar weakness will be on the minds of market participants during the coming week, with little in the way of earnings reports and economic data to sway them.

The Labor Department said Friday that the U.S. economy lost 190,000 jobs last month. While slightly more than economists had expected, the number wasn't so bad considering the prior two months saw upward revisions that totaled 91,000. What troubled investors was the unemployment rate, which jumped to 10.2% from 9.8% in September, the highest level in 26 years.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovering around the psychologically important 10,000 level and little on the horizon to impact trading more broadly, market observers say traders will likely go over economic releases of the past week -- most notably Friday's employment report -- and parse the data for some clue as to where the U.S. is in the economic recovery.

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"Judging by the very confused market trading Friday, I think we'll see more of the same next week," said Paul Nolte, managing director with Dearborn Partners. "You'll get a residual effect as people look back to the employment data. We could still see a very volatile market with 100- to 150-point swings in either direction."

According to CalculatedRiskBlog.com, when comparing the current employment recession to other post-World War II recessions, the percentage of job losses relative to the peak employment month is now longer and deeper than any other. The U.S. is currently experiencing the second worst unemployment rate since World War II, still below the 10.8% peak in the 1980s.