by Calculated Risk on 3/06/2014 08:09:00 PM

From Nelson Schwartz at the NY Times Economix: On February Jobs Data, It’s Anybody’s Guess. Here is my guess: Employment Preview for February: Another Weak Report

Another great piece from Tim Duy at Economist's View: Fed Watch: Tapering is Sooo 2013

Bottom Line: Barring the outlier outcomes of either recession or explosive growth, tapering is on autopilot. Rate guidance is now qualitative and actual policy is discretionary. Incoming data is interesting for what it says about the timing of the first rate hike. So far, though, it is not telling us much given the Fed's belief that weak data is largely weather related. The degree to which asset bubbles are a concern varies greatly accross Fed officials but the general consensus is that such concerns are of second or third order magnitude compared to missing on both sides of the dual mandate.

Friday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, the Employment Report for February. The consensus is for an increase of 150,000 non-farm payroll jobs in February, up from the 113,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in January. The consensus is for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 6.6% in February.

• At 8:30 AM, the Trade Balance report for January from the Census Bureau. The consensus is for the U.S. trade deficit to increase to $39.0 billion in January from $38.7 billion in December.

• At 3:00 PM, Consumer Credit for January from the Federal Reserve. The consensus is for credit to increase $14.5 billion in January.