by Calculated Risk on 3/03/2018 08:11:00 AM

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

Other key indicators include the January Trade deficit, and the February ISM non-manufacturing index and the February ADP employment report.

----- Monday, Mar 5th -----
10:00 AM: the ISM non-Manufacturing Index for February. The consensus is for index to decrease to 58.8 from 59.9 in January.

----- Tuesday, Mar 6th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Wednesday, Mar 7th -----
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 203,000 payroll jobs added in February, down from 234,000 added in January.

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 U.S. trade deficit to be at $55.1 billion in January from $53.1 billion in December.

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

3:00 PM: Consumer Credit from the Federal Reserve. The consensus is for consumer credit to increase $17.8 billion in January.

----- Thursday, Mar 8th -----
8:30 AM ET: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 220 thousand initial claims, up from 210 thousand the previous week.

----- Friday, Mar 9th -----
8:30 AM: Employment Report for February. The consensus is for an increase of 205,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in February, up from the 200,000 non-farm payroll jobs added in January.

The consensus is for the unemployment rate to decrease to 4.0%.

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

In January the year-over-year change was 2.114 million jobs.

A key will be the change in wages.