Week Ahead: Twitter IPO and October Jobs

A highly-anticipated initial public offering from Twitter and the October jobs report highlight next week’s economic calendar.

The Twitter IPO will probably garner more attention than the jobs report if only because  it’s a sexier story. The seven-year-old micro-blogging site is expected to price its shares Wednesday night and the stock will debut Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘TWTR.’

As of late Friday, Twitter was still mulling a price range of $17 to $20 per share, a figure that could change as the IPO approaches and the company and its bankers gauge demand. If priced at the high end of the current range, the IPO would raise about $1.7 billion for Twitter and value the company at $10.9 billion.

Twitter still hasn’t turned a profit and despite its wide popularity -- 232 million active monthly users -- questions remain whether it can grow into an Internet behemoth similar to the likes of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG).

On Friday the Labor Department will release October jobs data and the numbers are expected to have been pressured lower by the 16-day partial government shutdown that furloughed 800,000 federal employees earlier this month. The impact of the shutdown on the workers themselves as well as on firms that do business with the government is believed to have cut sharply into hiring.

In September a lackluster 148,000 new jobs were created, a sign that economic growth has stalled since the summer. Weak jobs and housing data have shelved plans by the Federal Reserve to begin scaling back its easy-money stimulus programs and the October jobs report isn’t likely to alter that strategy. Consequently, the report will be closely watched, as usually, but it probably won’t have much impact on broader fiscal or monetary policy.

The Gallup U.S. Consumer Spending Measure will be released Monday, an important gauge of consumer confidence, which has been slipping in recent months as labor markets have stalled and the government shutdown set many consumers on edge.

A report on consumer sentiment is out Friday, following the release of the jobs report.

As third quarter earnings wrap up, some bellwether companies are reporting next week; CME Group (NYSE:CME) on Monday; AOL (NYSE:AOL) and DirecTV (NYSE:DTV) on Tuesday; CBS Corp. (NYSE:CBS) on Wednesday; and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) on Thursday.