Wall Street to go through a test of mettle

Calcutta News.Net
Sunday 4th January, 2009

The weeks ahead for Wall Street will be a test of public sentiment as investors return from the holidays to bad economic news and a new economic stimulus plan.

Analysts say the recent stock market advance could continue for a while longer with many of the negative factors already accounted for.

Stocks rallied over last trading days of the year yielding positive returns on light volume.

In a heavy week of economic news, this week's main statistic will be the government's December unemployment report, due Friday.

Employers are expected to have cut 475,000 jobs from their payrolls after cutting 533,000 jobs in the previous month.

It is expected the unemployment rate will have risen to 7% from 6.7% in the previous month.

And on Thursday, the latest weekly reading on the number of jobless who are filing for unemployment is due out and is expected to continue showing steep increases.

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