1. Pay at the pump for fun in the sun
As the holiday dawns, Americans are paying nearly 50 cents a gallon more for motor fuel than they did last Memorial Day. In the Midwest, gasoline climbed above $3.60. Analysts see some hope of relief in fuel prices before Independence Day.
2. Employment rising
Joblessness remains at a low 4.5 percent. Watch for a further drop on Friday, with the May employment report. Chicago economist Robert Dederick says payrolls will add 150,000 positions, on top of 88,000 in April, and joblessness will sink to 4.4 percent. “The housing situation seems to have stopped darkening, and manufacturing has come out of an inventory correction,” says Dederick of RGD Economics.
3. Prosecutors to rest
Federal prosecutors in the fraud trial of newspaper tycoon Conrad Black are expected to rest their case this week against the former media baron and three other executives of Chicago-based Hollinger International Inc. The first defense witness may be Joan Maida, Black’s longtime personal assistant, according to Black’s lawyers.
4. All eyes on consumers
Economists will carefully monitor Tuesday’s report of consumer confidence from the Conference Board, to see whether high-spending levels can be maintained. Analysts are calling for a slight rise of perhaps one point from last month, to 105. “The household-debt service burden is at record high levels, and consumers are relying more and more on credit-card debt as opposed to home-equity debt to support their recent spending binge,” says economist Scott Anderson of Wells Fargo & Co.
5. Major market revisions
The main measure of stock prices, Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, briefly hit an all-time high three days last week, only to fall back. Flossmoor investment adviser Richard Evans says that, with the market making such a huge move higher, the rest of this year will see significant secondary corrections.
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William Sluis, wsluis@tribune.com
