Stocks eye dour jobs, shopping data

By Leah Schnurr and Deepa Seetharaman

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street may struggle this week to build on its best weekly performance in almost 30 years as investors grapple with a raft of economic data, including the November jobs report, that will likely provide more evidence of a deep economic downturn.

This week, investors will keenly watch retail sales to see if consumers opened their wallets and began buying gifts on Black Friday, as the day after Thanksgiving is known. It's the traditional start of the holiday shopping season and usually one of the year's biggest shopping days.

But this time, holiday sales forecasts are grim as the end of easy credit and rising unemployment have made consumers more frugal.

Wall Street ended last week's holiday-shortened run in the black, snapping a weeks-long losing streak as investors were encouraged by the U.S. government's bailout of Citigroup (C.N).

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index had its best week since at least 1980 -- jumping 12 percent. That's a turnaround from the previous week, when the S&P had its lowest close since 1997. For the four-day week, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 9.7 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC surged 10.9 percent. The U.S. stock market was closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

Still, steep losses among financial and automaker stocks made this among the worst months for Wall Street since the October 1987 stock market crash. For November, the Dow fell 5.3 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 7.5 percent and the Nasdaq lost 10.8 percent.

Year to date, the Dow is down 33.4 percent, while the S&P 500 is off 39 percent and the Nasdaq is down 42.1 percent.

In the coming week, Friday's data on November non-farm payrolls will be the most crucial indicator.

"The most important thing for the economy going forward will be jobs," said Gail Dudack, chief investment strategist of Dudack Research Group in New York.

U.S. payrolls probably shed 316,000 jobs in November, following October's drop of 240,000 jobs, according to economists polled by Reuters. The unemployment rate is seen rising to 6.8 percent in November from October's 6.5 percent.

The monthly job figures are likely to underscore worries about the U.S. economy's health that have already helped drive stocks down to multiyear lows.

TAKING SANTA'S PULSE

Even Santa Claus can get the blues, if he's worried about being laid off.

Data showing store traffic and sales for the Black Friday weekend will be released by Sunday, which could set the tone for the beginning of the week. Some shoppers told Reuters they were buying less this year than in Christmases past.

"It'll certainly determine the course of the market for the next week or two," said Warren Simpson, managing director of Stephens Capital Management in Little Rock, Arkansas, concerning the Black Friday turnout.