The delayed US jobs report won't tell us much (because of the delay) so we need to look elsewhere for clues on how the economy is doing

The delayed US jobs report won't tell us much (because of the delay) so we need to look elsewhere for clues on how the economy is doing. First off, an unexpected rise in crude oil inventories has pushed the price of WTIC below $100 per barrel - generally a good thing for the economy as high oil prices can slow a recovery. For more data, consider the following earnings reports coming out this week and why they matter: CAT (Wed.) as a gauge of industrial demand, F (Thurs.) as a key measure of domestic automobile spending, AMZN (Thurs.) the world's largest online retailer will help illuminate how much consumers are spending on retail, and UPS (Fri.) as shipping tends to be a good indicator of overall economic activity.