The Week Ahead: All Eyes on Jobs, Trade Data

Jeremy Glaser: Welcome to The Week Ahead. Fourth-quarter earnings season is behind us, and all eyes will turn to jobs and trade data.

January's employment report was stronger than expected, but Morningstar's Bob Johnson warns that we shouldn't expect a sustained acceleration in employment growth. He points out that last month was helped by a boost in construction jobs due to better weather and a rise in temporary help. And when you zoom out, employment growth rate has been slowing since 2015.

This doesn't mean that this month will be a disaster or that we are going to see job losses any time soon, but it doesn't appear we are on the verge of a big upturn in employment growth. That will have consequences on everything from Fed policy to consumer spending.

We'll also get some more data on what is happening with trade on Tuesday with January's trade balance. Another look at fourth-quarter productivity is on tap as well as factory orders.

Stay tuned to Morningstar for our take on these stories.