August Jobs Data: Friday's Headlines

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- Here are the top stock market headlines for the morning of Friday, September 4, 2009.

Friday's Early Headlines

• August Jobs Data Due at 8:30 a.m. EDT. - The Labor Department will release the August nonfarm payrolls report before the start of trading, with economists expecting a loss of 225,000 jobs. As important as this jobs reports seems to be, it'll be interesting to see if anyone will be hanging around on Wall Street to react to it. Did everyone leave for the Hamptons ahead of the long holiday weekend?
• Fed's Fisher, Nobel Laureate Expect Weak U.S. Rebound. - In a speech Thursday, Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher said the U.S. is likely to see a "a prolonged period of sluggish economic performance" with high unemployment as businesses reallocate capital and labor to adjust to today's economy. Meanwhile, economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz on Thursday said the "prospects of a robust recovery are very, very weak." In other news, the sky is blue and the sun rises in the east.
• Next in the Bailout Line: the Federal Housing Adminstration? - The Wall Street Journal reports that as mortgage-related losses increase, the Federal Housing Authority is in danger of seeing its reserves fall below the level demanded by Congress, according to officials, raising concerns the agency could need a taxpayer bailout. The Journal reports that if the FHA's reserves fall short, the agency is obliged to notify Congress, which could garner criticism that the government is funding losses in the housing market, or the FHA could be forced to pare back lending, which has helped boost slumping housing demand.
• Prime Borrowers Not So Prime After All. - In a separate report, the Journal said that prime borrowers, considered the nation's most credit-worthy, are now falling behind on their mortgage and credit-card payments at a faster pace than subprime borrowers. Delinquencies on mortgages made to prime customers rose 5.8% in the second quarter, compared with a rise of 1.8% among subprime customers, the report said. One year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions and it looks like the pain isn't in the rearview mirror yet. It will be interesting to see what this means for banks like Citigroup (C) - Get Report and HSBC (HBC) , which the Journal said have seen delinquencies rise among their prime borrowers.

Friday's Earnings Roundup

• H&R Block (HRB) - Get Report posted a fiscal first-quarter loss of 39 cents a share, two cents worse than the Thomson Reuters average estimate. Revenue rose 1.3% from a year ago to $275.5 million, although that number was also below consensus. The tax giant did reaffirm its earnings guidance range for the full year, which is inline with the average analyst estimate.