US industry should continue profiting from good consumer demand: Commerzbank

Quotes from Commerzbank Corporates & Markets:

-US industry should continue profiting from good consumer demand, which is boosted by the growing number of jobs. The general direction of the US economy is determined by the labour market, which has almost exclusively made positive headlines of late.

-Over the last six months, 282,000 new jobs were created per month. In line with the somewhat slower growth of the US economy, we forecast a slightly smaller, but still solid gain of 240,000 for February (consensus:240,000).

-This is based on the assumption that there was only a minor negative weather effect despite the cold spell in the northeast of the US, because in the rest of the US temperatures were higher than usual in mid-February.

-This job growth should push the unemployment rate from 5.7% to 5.6% (consensus: 5.6%). The markets will probably focus on the development of average hourly wages again. We forecast a 2.2% increase on the year, which, whilst at the upper end of the recent fluctuation range, would still provide no evidence of elevated upward pressure on wages.