[Colleen Mcedwards, Cnn Anchor:] For once, finally, the stock markets got the green light. At least it's a go signal, however temporary. Investors just seem to be waiting to jump on any good news. First Dell Computer started the upward momentum yesterday, by reassuring investors that it will meet its first quarter forecast. Then Alcoa, the first Dow component to report, beat consensus estimates on first quarter earnings. On top of that, Yahoo! got a coveted buy rating from Lehman Brothers. But will all this euphoria last? CNN's Deborah Marchini joins us live now from our financial news headquarters in New York Deborah.
[Deborah Marchini, Cnn Anchor:] Hi, Colleen. And as always, the answer is that depends. The futures markets this morning are signaling some selling pressure at the open. We could see maybe a 50-point drop in the Dow, and Nasdaq futures are down about 19 points. But that could change. At 8:30 Eastern time a little more than an hour from now we're going to get key economic report. It's the government's first official look at the economy in March: It is the unemployment report. The unemployment rate is supposed to tick up by.1 percent, to 4.3 percent, which is still pretty near a 30-year low. About 58,000 new jobs are expected to have been created in the month of March. That's a pretty weak report. Now what the markets are hoping to see is weak job growth, but not a weak enough economic picture that would signal recession. Weak job growth, of course, would result in a rate cut, presumably, by the Federal Reserve, perhaps before the Fed's next official meeting in May. Now, Alan Greenspan is going to be speaking in public today, but his topic is the importance of education, and we are told he will not be taking questions. So it's pretty clear the Fed chairman does not want to give us any hints today about where interest rate policy may head Colleen.
[Mcedwards:] All right, Deborah, tell us more about Agilent. I understand they're cutting salaries of their employees as a way of containing costs. How unusual a move is that?
[Marchini:] It's becoming less and less unusual. The vast majority of companies that are found in economic trouble in these times have chosen to cut payrolls, to cut jobs, or at least to announce plans to cut jobs. What Agilent is doing is interesting: They're going to impose a temporary, across-the-board, 10 percent salary cut so that they won't have to lay anybody off. Agilent is that spin-off of Hewlett Packard. It makes testing and measurement equipment. And it really says that business turned bad just in the last four to six weeks, much more than they had expected. They're having trouble with customers like big communications firms. And that trouble is showing up in other places. We have two warnings this morning, one from Sycamore Networks, one from Extreme Networks, and they're both cutting staff by 13 percent and 12 percent.
[Mcedwards:] All right, CNN's Deborah Marchini, in New York, thanks. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com