As I mentioned in my video this morning, the big economic news of the week - official U.S. payrolls numbers for March - arrives on Friday, when stock markets are closed.
What makes this particular report so important is that economists expect a gain - yes, a gain - in payrolls, which will go a long way toward cementing the impression that the economic recovery is indeed real. Right now, the consensus of economists expect gains of 200,000.
However, Goldman Sachs on Thursday cut back its expectations (although expectations were well above the consensus to begin with, so this might not be such a big deal). Economists there now believe payrolls will rise by 200,000, down from 275,000 earlier. Their rationale relates to the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits, which rose to 238,000 according to Thursday's report on initial jobless claims.
They explain: "Based on these results, we are lowering our estimate for March non-farm payrolls to +200k from +275k. The underlying assumptions are +25k in underlying net hiring (vs. +50k previously), +100k for a weather rebound (unchanged), and +75k for temporary Census hires (vs. +125k previously)."
Still, if Eddy Elfenbein -- who writes the Crossing Wall Street blog -- is any indication of the mood among investors, the downgrade is trivial. "I'll be happy with any positive number," he said.