Jobs Report and Hot Stocks to Watch

Stock futures were indicating flat ahead of the payrolls report. The SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) after trading down fractionally Thursday. It’s the close of the holiday shortened week, and it will go out with a second bang. The monthly Employment Situation Report is due this Friday. This report just happens to be the most widely followed report by the market and by Main Street. The president even comments on the data each time it is reported, and now his challenger does as well. Nothing else matters more to the market today than this data point and its interpretation will determine the direction for stocks.

The report for May showed unemployment stuck at 8.2%, and nonfarm payrolls hardly budged, increasing by 69K through the month. For June, economists see the unemployment rate sticking at 8.2% again, with nonfarm payrolls increasing by a still pathetic 90K. ADP reported its estimate of private (not total) nonfarm payrolls yesterday, indicating its expectation for a relatively stronger 176K increase, but I have serious doubts about that. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg do as well, forecasting just a 100K increase in private nonfarm payrolls. That would compare to May’s increase of 82K.

Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) will post its Monster Employment Index for June. In May, it increased a point to 147, and it was up 3% year-over-year. The index is a gauge of U.S. online job posting activity, and with the job search market effectively moved online now, it matters. However, all market focus will be on the federal jobs figure.

Hot Stocks
Thursday’s wire had the day’s biggest percentage decliner down 19.6%, as Ambow Education (Nasdaq: AMBO) reported its first quarter EPS, filed a statement with the SEC about a former employee’s allegations and reported on the resignation of its CFO. The company’s March quarter report showed a net loss against estimates for a positive result. Also, in a filing to the SEC, the company said it was conducting an internal investigation regarding “allegations of financial impropriety and wrongful conduct” made by a former employee regarding the acquisition of a training school in 2008. This miss of its EPS looks to me to be tied to a change in its accounting and revenue recognition that the Street had not anticipated nor incorporated into its valuation yet.

One of Thursday’s sharpest risers was Microvision (Nasdaq: MVIS), which after sliding recently on a dilutive share offering, seemed to benefit Thursday on its mentioning with this article by PCWorld. Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) recent announcement regarding its hi-tech glasses reminded some of MVIS’ work in the area.

The earnings schedule for Friday includes Daxor (NYSE: DXR), Hicks Acquisition (Nasdaq: HKAC), Hoku (Nasdaq: HOKU), NewLead (Nasdaq: NEWL), Roberts Realty Investors (NYSE: RPI), R.F. Monolithics (Nasdaq: RFMI), Rosetta Genomics (Nasdaq: ROSG) and Torch Energy Royalty Trust (NYSE: TRU).

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