Data on February employment is......>

US DATA PREVIEW: Data on February employment is scheduled to be released at 8:30

am ET (13:30 GMT) Friday and is expected to show a 180,000 increase by the

Bloomberg consensus and a 183,000 gain by the MNI survey, but with the risk of

an upside surprise based on survey history, which shows underestimates in each

of the last seven February reports.

- Markets are also interested in any revision to the sharp 304,000 January gain.

A large upward revision to the ADP figure in January, while far from an exact

signal, does suggest some upside risk for a revision.

- Both the BBG and MNI surveys expect the unemployment rate to dip back to 3.9%

and hourly earnings are seen rising 0.3% by both surveys. A 0.3% gain in

earnings would push the year/year rate back to 3.3%, assuming no large revision

to the January data. The average workweek is expected to remain at 34.5 hours.