The Market On Friday

At 8:30AM today, the data on layoffs for January will be released. It is already understood that half a million people were laid off in January.

I bet the real number is higher, because not everyone that is laid off is able to claim unemployment benefits.

This is the bitter tragedy of the recession.

For those working and collecting wages, their buying power has increased. This point is starting to reverberate in MSM articles about the economy. This is primarily due to the lowering of inflation and lower fuel costs would probably be the essential factor here. I am seeing a raise in gas prices lately. A return to the $4 per gallon level would change this rise in buying power real fast. Again we see how the price of oil per barrel is right at the heart of economic activity.

Although wage earners might experience a bigger bang for the buck, everyone's net worth, AKA investments and or housing value, is still down 30% to 60% or more.

Do we need to point out that although futures are up, market volatility has produced end of day results that are more often than not contrary to futures indicators. In other words it is possible that by 4PM the DOW is off 150 points, but who knows. My one indicator of European trading, Vestas, is presently up at 7AM.

Reuters: Index futures point to higher Wall Street open

Economists in a Reuters survey forecast 525,000 jobs were lost in the month compared with a loss of 524,000 jobs in December. The unemployment rate is seen at 7.5 percent, compared with 7.2 percent in the prior month.

Reuters: U.S. estimated to have lost 525,000 jobs in January

Manufacturing payrolls were estimated to have lost 139,000 jobs, an unsurprising figure given gloomy readings on regional and nationwide manufacturing indexes.

Average hourly earnings were estimated to have risen a slight 0.2 percent after rising just 0.3 percent in December.