Delayed Economic Data Due This Week

Pre-market futures appear seeking some new equilibrium this morning, cascading into the red after a strong showing on the half-day of trading Friday, where the major indexes all grew more than +0.5% on the session. This morning, they’re in give-back mode: the Dow is -207 points, -0.43% at this hour, the S&P 500 is -46, -0.67%, the Nasdaq -239, -0.94% and the small-cap Russell 2000 -26 points, -1.06%.

Even though this is the first week of a new trading month, we’re not seeing a full-fledged “Jobs Week” due to delays from the 6+ week government shutdown. We will see monthly private-sector payrolls from Automatic Data Processing ADP out on Wednesday, where they will be following their first positive month (+42K in October) since July. But not JOLTS numbers or non-farm payrolls from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will be forthcoming this week.

Cyber Monday Bookends First Holiday Shopping Weekend

Today is Cyber Monday, which is anticipated to be the second-highest shopping day of the inaugural weekend of the holiday season, at 73.9 million online shoppers expected today. Black Friday brought an estimated 130.4 million shoppers, while Small-Business Saturday saw +67 million customers. Despite recent reports of consumer insecurity due to higher prices and worries about the job market, consumers appear to be holding their own in this early period of holiday shopping.

Adobe ADBE sees online shopping coming in at $11.8 billion today, +9.1% from a year ago. Mastercard MA saw Black Friday online sales +10.4% from last year, with only +1.7% in-store growth on that biggest shopping day of the year. Both Sensormatic and RetailNext reported lower in-store traffic Friday: -2.1% and -3.6% year over year, respectively. These surveys were still in agreement that Black Friday was tops for consumer activity this year.

What to Expect from Today’s Stock Market

We look for market sentiment to find some semblance of balance today, which may prove elusive as Fed officers remain in an extended “blackout period” ahead of December 10th’s interest rate decision. With strength in the economy, a labor market holding together for the most part and inflation not (yet) spinning out of control, it becomes a murkier proposition whether another 25 basis-point (bps) rate cut is necessary.

After today’s open, final November S&P Manufacturing PMI and ISM Manufacturing results come out, expected on either side of the 50-level, which determines growth from loss. We’re off August highs on the S&P side, though still came in at 51.9 for October. ISM results haven’t reached the 50 threshold since February of this year, and fell to 48.7% in last month’s report.

What’s New for This Week of Trading?

Despite this not being a proper Jobs Week, we will see some delayed economic reports finally hitting the tape, including September prints for Imports & Exports Wednesday and the all-important Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report on Friday morning. We’ll also get Services PMI for November, an October Trade Balance and Consumer Sentiment for December.

And, while we consider Q3 earnings season generally in the books, we’ll still get a number of important reports, including from retailers Macy’s (M), Dollar Tree DLTR, Dollar General DG and American Eagle AEO. Cybersecurity major CrowdStrike CRWD also puts out quarterly earnings on Tuesday, and cloud-software giant Salesforce CRM on Wednesday.

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

Zacks Investment Research