DOW 9782 - to close year at 9400-50
Expect not so jubilant retail numbers to take markets lower
Not the only reason for my expectations, but informal Sat night ck of mall saw mediocre crowds lacking bags.
KSS - 48.32 look for possible reorganization late 2004 or early 2005. They've fallen and they're unlikely to get up. Panic attempts at reviving their faltering position may be their death knell
WMT will continue to whittle away at competition and prey upon the weak, possibly with expansion into more upscale division.
Reuters
Mall Lines, Economy Data to Guide Stocks
Sunday November 30, 10:13 am ET
By Denise Duclaux
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors will straggle back from a weekend of turkey leftovers and daunting lines at cash registers to a fresh month on Wall Street and more data that points to strengthening economy, analysts say.
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But any gains in the stock market this week as investors return in full force from the Thanksgiving Day holiday may be tempered by nagging concerns over high share prices and record lows in the dollar.
"The valuation of stocks is what is preventing them from going a lot higher at this point," said John Davidson, president and chief executive officer of PartnerRe Asset Management. "There is more confidence around the economy than around stocks."
Light volumes marked last week, when the stock market was shut on Thursday for Thanksgiving and closed early on Friday. But major market gauges scored hefty gains for the week. The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI - News) climbed 1.6 percent, finishing Friday at 9,782.46, while the tech-stuffed Nasdaq (NasdaqSC:^IXIC - News) jumped 3.5 percent, ending at 1,960.26, and the broad Standard & Poor's 500 (CBOE:^SPX - News) rose 2.2 percent to close at 1,058.20.
But for November, it was a different story, with the Dow down 0.2 percent, while the Nasdaq gained 1.5 percent and the S&P 500 added 0.7 percent.
For the year, though, the trend remains buoyant, with the Dow up 17 percent, the Nasdaq up 47 percent and the S&P 500 up 20 percent.
A slew of strong data on the U.S. economy helped propel stocks higher last week. And analysts expect reports this week to point to improvements in the job market in November as well as in the nation's manufacturing and services sectors.
A hectic weekend of shopping will also grab the limelight this week, as investors search for evidence that consumers are spending heavily this holiday season and helping stoke the economic recovery.
"The market has developed an upward bias, and I think it will continue into (this) week," said Stanley Nabi, managing director at Credit Suisse Asset Management.
'TIS THE SEASON TO SHOP
Americans made their annual day-after-Thanksgiving pilgrimage to stores on Friday for predawn sales offering hefty markdowns. Analysts widely expect this year's holiday season to show a big improvement from last year's weak levels.
"You start to enter a seasonally strong period for stocks, and a lot of optimism about the Christmas season," said Rick Meckler, president of investment firm LibertyView Capital Management. "There will be a lot of focus on how this weekend's sales went, and if those numbers are good."
The day after Thanksgiving -- known as Black Friday because it once marked the day when retailers got out of the red -- is the traditional start to the holiday shopping season, which generates as much as 40 percent of annual revenues for key gift destinations such as toy stores and apparel chains.
"Between now and Christmas, it's really going to be about how companies individually are doing, in what for many of them is a 'make or break' time of year," Meckler said.
HIGH HOPES FOR JOBS AND FACTORIES
The November payrolls number, due on Friday, will be the main event this week. But investors also will eye weekly employment data plus surveys of the manufacturing and services sectors for hints that economic recovery is robust enough to support the big run-up in stock prices this year.
"The economic figures that have been coming out have been very comforting and very supportive of a higher market," Nabi said. "We are going to have more good economic news, and I think that will carry the market higher."
Non-farm payrolls are expected to have added 135,000 jobs in November, while the U.S. unemployment rate is forecast to remain at 6.0 percent, according to economists polled by Reuters. In October, non-farm payrolls gained 126,000 jobs.
The report on first-time claims for unemployment benefits, due Thursday, is expected to show these claims dipped to 350,000 for the week ended Nov. 29, from 351,000 claims in the previous week.
The U.S. labor market has been one area of concern with job growth lagging in an otherwise rosy economic picture.
Expectations are high for the Institute for Supply Management to release healthy manufacturing and services sector indexes, due Monday and Wednesday, respectively -- after data released last week showed factory activity in the Midwest expanded for a seventh straight month.
The ISM national index of manufacturing for November is expected to climb to 58.0 from October's 57.0, reflecting an increase in output by U.S. factories, according to economists polled by Reuters. But the ISM national index of non-manufacturing activity, which gauges the output of the U.S. services sector, is expected to inch down to 64.3 in November from October's 64.7, according to a Reuters poll of economists.
(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser and Vivian Chu)
(Wall St Week Ahead runs every week. Comments or questions on this column can be e-mailed to denise.duclaux@reuters.com)
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