Jobs Report Looms in Busy Coming Week

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- With most of the blue-chip earnings reports out of the way, Wall Street's attention will swing back to the macro headlines in the coming week, headlined by the all-important April jobs report on Friday.

Stocks are coming off a positive weekly performance, buoyed by blockbuster earnings reports from Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) and better-than-expected housing and consumer sentiment data.

Concerns about Spain's intensifying debt crisis were set aside, if only temporarily.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.5% over the week, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq climbed 1.8% and 2.3%, respectively.

Next week will bring key reports on manufacturing and consumer spending then culminate in the Labor Department's Employment Situation report on Friday.

The economy added only 120,000 jobs in March, about half the gains posted in the previous three months, disappointing investors who were hoping for continuing signs of a strengthening economy.

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Recent economic reports have been more mixed, with jobless claims data and first-quarter GDP coming in weaker than expected, but consumer sentiment and housing data delivering positive surprises.

"The big debate is how much of the recent gains were weather-induced and whether there will be payback in the next few months," said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said at press conference last week that the unusually warm weather may have inflated the job numbers for January and February, making March's soft report artificially weak.

Given how hard it is to tell how much weather is a factor in the data, Greenhaus said he believes investors should focus on a two-to-three month trend rather than a single month's report.

Investors may also want to adjust their expectations about the economic recovery, according to the analyst. "A robust, meaningful expansion in the economy is just not unfolding. The less investors expect that to unfold, the less likely they are to be disappointed," Greenhaus said.

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