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Strategies & Market Trends : the Women of SI -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rainy_Day_Woman who wrote (942)	4/7/2000 9:05:00 AM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Respond to of 1691

NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks will take their opening cue on Friday from unemployment numbers that could provide a clue to the direction of interest rates. The Labor Department will release June jobs data at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT). Economists polled by Reuters expect to see a rise in payrolls of 376,000, up from 43,000 in February. ``If those numbers come in worse than expected, that could throw a monkey wrench' into the market, said Thom Brown, managing director of Rutherford Brown and Catherwood. Analysts said Wall Street would focus as well on average hourly earnings and the unemployment rate. Earnings are predicted to go up 0.3 percent, the same as the month before, and unemployment to tick down to 4 from 4.1 percent. ``That's where we have a potential for surprise,' said Bill Meehan, chief market analyst for Cantor Fitzgerald in Darien, Conn. The jobs numbers could be a key for the Federal Reserve as it ponders whether to raise rates to cool off the economy and curb potential inflation. The central bank's rate-setting panel next meets May 16. The Fed has raised short-term rates five times since June 1999, and Wall Street has already factored in another 0.25 percentage point rise in rates. The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI - news) ended up 80.35 points, or 0.73 percent, to 11,114.27 on Thursday. The Nasdaq composite index (^IXIC - news) climbed 98.34 points, or 2.36 percent, to 4,267.56 as it continued to try to repair the damage from a steep fall Monday and Tuesday. Tommy Hilfiger Corp. (NYSE:TOM - news), the fashion brand known for its red-white-and-blue logo, said its profits for the fourth quarter would be at the lower end of its previous forecasts, and operating earnings for fiscal 2001 could fall 30 to 40 percent. Internet health network Healtheon/WebMD Corp. (NasdaqNM:HLTH - news) said it expected revenue for the first quarter to top $62 million, compared to $33 million in the fourth quarter of 1999. Tokyo's Nikkei average closed up 29.2 points, or 0.14 percent, at 20,252.81. London's FTSE-100 index (^FTSE - news) was up 52.4 points, or 0.81 percent, at 6,503.5 The dollar strengthened against the yen to a bid of 105.21 yen overnight. The euro was almost unchanged at $0.9572 bid. The U.S. Treasury 30-year bond was off 12/32 and was yielding 5.81 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 futures index for June was up 2 points at 4147. The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column said an analyst's $1,000-a-share price target on British Web auctioneer QXL.com Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: QXL.L) (NasdaqNM:QXLC - news) was raising eyebrows.