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Unemployment Figures Continue To Climb, How Bad Will It Get? |
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Monday, 30 March 2009 |
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By Christian Hill
Consumer Confidence is expected to show an improvement in March when the report is released tomorrow morning. Nothing comes to mind as the reason for this sudden jump, so it may be nothing other than things were so bad, they could only get better at some point.
Both the ISM Index and ISM Services reports are released this week, and expectations are for a mixed bag. The Index report for March is expected to show further contraction, down to a reading of 35.5. If this reading holds true, it will reverse a two-month streak of an improving (slower contraction) report, and mark the 14th straight month of overall contraction. The Services report for March is expected to show a small gain of 0.3, up to a reading of 41.9. While still not above a reading of 50 (which indicates expansion), at least the reading is heading in the right direction.
The Pending Home Sales report for February is a bit of a conundrum for me. Expectations are for a further decline of 1.6% in February. However, just last week Existing Home Sales beat estimates to the positive side, as did New Home Sales. I would expect this to be reflected in the Pending Home Sales report. Perhaps the report coming out on April Fools Day should be a hint, but I think this report will beat expectations.
The final report I wanted to touch on this week is the Non-farm Payrolls report for March. I am beginning to sound like a broken record: job losses are likely to increase. There is no doubt that the job losses continue, the question becomes how many. Expectations are for 657k jobs lost in March. This brings the total to almost 2 million jobs lost already this year and it would mark the 15th straight month of declines. The only longer streak since these records have been kept is the 81-82 recession, when there were 17 straight months of job losses.
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