Consumption, Jobs Focus of Coming Week

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- After getting news that U.S. economic growth slowed to a 2.4% pace in the second quarter, investors will be looking forward to the coming week's broad mix of earnings and macroeconomic releases for a better sense of where the economy is headed.

In addition to key reports on construction, consumer spending and the labor market, investors also will have a fresh batch of quarterly results to sift through from the key housing, consumer and shipping sectors.

"The GDP number was just a shade lower than consensus estimates and certainly wasn't earth-shattering news since markets were certainly anticipating slower growth," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners, who had been looking for growth of 2.7%.

The consensus estimate had been for GDP growth of 2.5%, according to Briefing.com. Markets struggled to shrug off weakness immediately following the report, as stronger-than-expected readings on July consumer sentiment and Chicago-area manufacturing activity helped pare earlier losses.

"The slowdown in exports and extremely modest consumer spending were highlighted in the decline, but the number was not a major shock," Cardillo said. "It's certainly still above levels that indicate that the possibility of a double-dip recession is not in the cards."

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Still, the report will likely make markets pretty volatile next week, particularly in the wake of St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard's indications that additional stimulus measures will be needed to aid the recovery, said Marc Scudillo, managing officer of Amper Wealth Management and Corporate Benefits.

"On the one hand, Bullard's comments are good news because they show that the Fed is prepared to take action, but on the other hand, it shows that we're not out of the woods yet," he said.

That means investors will be paying particularly close attention to the coming week's data menu.

On Monday, the Department of Commerce releases its June construction spending report, which is expected to show a drop of 1%, after May's milder decline of 0.2%. July manufacturing activity is also projected to weaken on Monday with the Institute of Supply Management's index estimated to show a reading of 53.5 for the month, compared with June's level of 56.2.