Investors Will Look to Economic Reports

If investors don’t get another anxiety attack over more “Enronitis” waiting in the wings, stocks are expected to rise this week.

Wall Street will look to see if fresh economic data give more signals of recovery.

But the crisis of confidence after Texas-based energy trading giant Enron Corp.’s record bankruptcy and complicated accounting problems will continue to cast a pall over the market.

The Enron crisis has raised concerns that other companies may have accounting bombshells waiting to be dropped. That, in turn, has hurt the shares of firms with complex corporate structures.

Seeking more clues on the status of the world’s largest economy, investors will pick apart reports on orders in the non-manufacturing services sector, retail sales, layoffs, productivity and unit labor costs, weekly jobless claims, consumer credit and wholesale inventories.

One factor helping stocks, said Howard Kornblue, a portfolio manager with Pilgrim Inc., was the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates steady last week after slashing rates 11 times in the last year. This is seen as a sign the economy is OK and doesn’t need more monetary stimulus.

Tuesday, Wall Street pros and Main Street investors may get a severe case of eyestrain as they scan all the economic data.

Retail chain-store sales for the week ending Feb. 2 will be issued before the market’s regular session opens by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and UBS Warburg. The statistics are compiled from seven major U.S. discount, department and chain stores, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. .

Half an hour after the opening bell, two reports will be issued: December factory orders and the Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for January.

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Other economic reports due out this week:

Tuesday, Institute of Supply Management releases its non-manufacturing services index for January.

Wednesday, Labor Department releases a preliminary reading on fourth-quarter productivity and unit labor costs.

Thursday, Federal Reserve issues its December consumer credit report.

Friday, Commerce Department report on December wholesale inventories.