Economics
It's a Big Week for One of the Most Important Debates in Markets
- Reports culminate in March employment figures, due out Friday
- Underlying health may be somewhere between hard, soft data
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The world will have a better idea by the end of this week, but probably no definitive answer, on whether the U.S. economy’s boom in “soft” data is being reflected in the “hard” stuff.
This week’s economic data include trade figures and factory orders, culminating in a payrolls report Friday forecast to show 175,000 jobs added by U.S. employers in March. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Monday indicated manufacturers continued to expand at a robust pace in March. That followed Friday’s tepid figures on February consumer spending, suggesting that the largest part of the economy could limit broader expansion, at least in the first quarter.