Retail Earnings, Economic Reports Due

This week, economic data and retailers’ report cards will get Wall Street’s attention.

Retail is the name of the game for the handful of companies set to report quarterly earnings. Tuesday will bring numbers from Costco Wholesale Corp., Kohl’s Corp. and Staples Inc.

Thursday marks another pivotal event: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan returns to Capitol Hill for the Senate leg of his congressional testimony before U.S. lawmakers. Last Wednesday, his cautiously upbeat presentation to a House committee sparked a brief rally.

Reports on service-sector activity and layoffs Tuesday will give Wall Street something else to look at, besides a fistful of earnings. The Institute for Supply Management will report on non-manufacturing activity in February, with the figure expected to be 51, which would show modest growth. A number below 50 is evidence of contraction. Last month it was 49.6.

The ISM service-sector data will be watched closely to see how it dovetails with the ISM manufacturing index, which jumped to 54.7 in February from 49.9 in January. That data, released Friday, reflected expansion in the U.S. manufacturing sector for the first time after 18 months of decline.

The market also will get a read on U.S. factory orders Wednesday. In January, factory orders were expected to have risen 1%, according to economists polled by Reuters. The month before, factory orders rose 1.2%.

Friday, the Big Daddy of economic data--the unemployment report for February--will give Wall Street some clues on whether the economic recovery is any closer at hand. The economy is expected to have added a scant 9,000 non-farm jobs in February, compared with a drop of 89,000 jobs in January, according to a Reuters poll of economists. The unemployment rate, though, is expected to have risen to 5.7% in February from 5.6% in January.