Shares Stuck Between Jobs, Oil

Stocks and bonds finished Thursday virtually unchanged, as all attention focused on the coming payrolls report. Wall Street is expecting a good number: 225,000 jobs added in February is the consensus forecast with whisper numbers going even higher.

The Street has been notoriously high in estimates over the past year as colleague Mike Marino and RealMoney.com contributor Barry Ritholtz have pointed out. But this may be the month the Street's analysts finally get to cash in all those job-growth chips they've been piling up.

That's because one of the best forward employment indicators, the Institute for Supply Management's index of nonmanufacturing employment, rose to its highest level since 1997, the group said on Thursday. ...