Jobs Report: Tomorrow's Headliners
NEW YORK (
) -- Before sneaking away early for the Labor Day holiday weekend, traders will have to grapple with the August jobs report, which is expected to show the U.S. labor market continues to struggle.
The Labor Department's nonfarm payrolls report, due for release at 8:30 a.m. EDT, is expected to show that 225,000 jobs were lost last month. Despite showing the job market remains weak, a loss of 225,000 would be improvement from the 247,000 jobs lost in July. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate, which unexpectedly fell to 9.4% in July, should rise to 9.5%, according to economists polled by
Reuters
.
Aside from the jobs data, the economic docket is bare Friday. Stock news looks to be slim as well, with only
H&R Block
(HRB) - Get Report
scheduled to report quarterly results.
Commodities should be closely watched after Thursday's rally. Gold jumped $19.20 to close at $997.70 an ounce, a six-month high, and silver rose 92.5 cents to $16.29 an ounce.
Traders will also be watching for headlines ahead of this weekend's meeting of G-20 finance ministers, who are set to begin work on economic exit strategies during their convention in London. On Thursday,
Reuters
reported that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he will offer principles to the other G-20 members that aim to constrain the excessive use of leverage by banks.
-- Written by Robert Holmes in New York
.
