It’s the first Friday of the month which means US non-farm payrolls, the first to cover a whole month under the Biden administration.
Pantheon Macroeconomics is expecting a 300,000 increase in payrolls, well ahead of the 195,000 consensus forecast.
“The increase we expect to see in February is more technical, because the biggest single contribution likely will come from a reversal of January's seasonal adjustment distortions in the manufacturing and construction sectors. Unwinding these distortions in full requires these sectors to report an increase of about 140K. At the same time, we also expect an improvement in payrolls in the discretionary services sector, because that's clearly signaled in the daily small business employment numbers from Homebase,” Pantheon said.
“Payrolls aside, we expect to see a modest 0.2% increase in average hourly earnings, but these numbers have been rendered useless by Covid, because they are not mix-adjusted,” Pantheon added.
In London, Pearson PLC’s (LON:PSON) final results have been prefaced by an upbeat trading update in late January, when the education firm reported a return to sales growth in the fourth quarter, as strong demand for online learning offset continued declines in North American course materials.
The FTSE 100 group said it expects adjusted operating profit for 2020 to be in the range of £310mln-£315mln, compared to £581mln in 2019, on sales down 10% compared to the previous year, so investors will be looking to see where exactly the final figure has fallen within this range.
Online learning will continue to hold sway amid the ongoing lockdown measures, as well as what the firm’s strategy will be now that the pandemic appears to be entering its later stages, reducing the need for online and remote learning resources.
Significant announcements expected for Friday, March 4
Finals: London Stock Exchange Group PLC (LON:LSE), Pearson PLC (LON:PSON), Essentra PLC (LON:ESNT), AIB Group PLC (LON:AIBG), ConvaTec Group PLC (LON:CTEC), Global Ports Investments PLC (LON:GLPR)
Economic data: US non-farm payrolls, US trade balance