by Calculated Risk on 2/27/2016 08:09:00 AM

The key report this week is the February employment report on Friday.

Other key indicators include February vehicle sales, the February ISM manufacturing and non-manufacturing indexes, and the January trade deficit.

----- Monday, February 29th -----
9:45 AM: Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for February. The consensus is for a reading of 52.9, down from 55.6 in January.

10:00 AM: Pending Home Sales Index for January. The consensus is for a 0.5% increase in the index.

10:30 AM: Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey for February.

----- Tuesday, March 1st -----
10:00 AM: ISM Manufacturing Index for February. The consensus is for the ISM to be at 48.5, up from 48.2 in January.

Here is a long term graph of the ISM manufacturing index.

The ISM manufacturing index indicated contraction at 48.2% in January. The employment index was at 45.9%, and the new orders index was at 51.5%.

10:00 AM: Construction Spending for January. The consensus is for a 0.5% increase in construction spending.

All day: Light vehicle sales for February. The consensus is for light vehicle sales to increase to 17.6 million SAAR in February from 17.5 million in January (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate).

This graph shows light vehicle sales since the BEA started keeping data in 1967. The dashed line is the January sales rate.

----- Wednesday, March 2nd -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

8:15 AM: The ADP Employment Report for February. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 185,000 payroll jobs added in February, down from 206,000 in January.

2:00 PM: the Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts.

----- Thursday, March 3rd -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 270 thousand initial claims, down from 272 thousand the previous week.

10:00 AM: Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders (Factory Orders) for January. The consensus is a 2.0% increase in orders.

10:00 AM: the ISM non-Manufacturing Index for February. The consensus is for index to decrease to 53.1 in February from 53.5 in January.

----- Friday, March 4th -----
8:30 AM: Employment Report for February. The consensus is for an increase of 190,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in February, up from the 151,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in January.

The consensus is for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 4.9%.

This graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.

In December, the year-over-year change was 2.67 million jobs.

A key will be the change in real wages.

8:30 AM: Trade Balance report for January from the Census Bureau.

This graph shows the U.S. trade deficit, with and without petroleum, through December. The blue line is the total deficit, and the black line is the petroleum deficit, and the red line is the trade deficit ex-petroleum products.

The consensus is for the trade deficit to be at $43.9 billion from $43.4 billion in December.