by Calculated Risk on 3/07/2018 07:37:00 PM

A couple of February NFP forecasts (will be released Friday), from Merrill Lynch:

[W]e look for nonfarm payrolls to increase by 160k ... We look for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 4.1% in February ... We forecast a trend-like 0.2% mom in average hourly earnings which will allow the yoy rate to slip to 2.8%.

And from Nomura:

We expect a strong, 210k increase in nonfarm payroll employment in February ... we expect a 0.2% (0.19%) m-o-m increase in February’s average hourly earnings (AHE). ... Our forecast of 0.2% mo-m corresponds to a 2.8% y-o-y increase, a slight dip from the 2.9% reading in January. Finally, we expect the unemployment rate to decline 0.1pp to 4.0% in February...

Thursday:
• At 8:30 AM ET: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 220 thousand initial claims, up from 210 thousand the previous week.