If you get a big number next week, people will say great, the labor market is finally recovering, this is the last piece in the economic recovery, ... But they'll also say, well maybe now the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates sooner.
While these orders have been volatile of late, the trend remains a solid one. Whether we will see a disruption in this trend due to the surge in energy prices remains to be seen and will ultimately be more important to markets than today's pre-Katrina outcome.
The national labor market numbers are being skewered by the hurricanes at the moment and it's going to be a few months before we get a clean read.
The Fed is not going to raise rates right away, even if the March numbers are really strong. They are going to wait until they get several months of very strong numbers, and for people to start really feeling that the labor market is improving before they raise rates.
It was 25 basis points, everyone knew that, and so there's virtually no stock market reaction,
In general, consumers seem to be taking the view, at least initially, that higher energy costs will not disappear anytime soon and that they are likely to take a toll on the economy as a whole and on labor markets in particular.