by Calculated Risk on 3/02/2024 08:11:00 AM

The key report scheduled for this week is the February employment report.

Fed Chair Powell presents the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress on Wednesday and Thursday.

----- Monday, March 4th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, March 5th -----
10:00 AM: the ISM Services Index for February.

----- Wednesday, March 6th -----
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 150,000 payroll jobs added in February, up from 107,000 added in January.

10:00 AM ET: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for January from the BLS.

This graph shows job openings (black line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Jobs openings increased in December to 9.03 million from 8.93 million in November.

10:00 AM: Testimony, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, Before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee

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 7th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 220 thousand initial claims, up from 216 thousand last week.

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 the most recent report. 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 the trade deficit to be $61.7 billion.  The U.S. trade deficit was at $62.2 billion in December.

10:00 AM: Testimony, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

12:00 PM: Q4 Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States from the Federal Reserve.

----- Friday, March 8th -----
8:30 AM: Employment Report for February.   The consensus is for 188,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 3.7%.

There were 353,000 jobs added in January, and the unemployment rate was at 3.7%.

This graph shows the jobs added per month since January 2021.