There was a small reverse on Wednesday in what was seen as a healthy rise in the international stock markets at the beginning of the New Year. The upward movement was spawned by several pieces of good US economic news.

Jobs Report on Horizon

The US economy is the world’s largest, and its movement is likely to be the fulcrum this entire week, leading up to the crucial jobs report for the month of December, set to be released on Friday. Darkening a bit the overall optimistic feelings, however, is the dismal outlook for Europe and its ongoing debt crisis.Investors have focused their attention on the future of the US economy during the first week of the year, which helped stocks show reasonable gains. The DAX of Germany rose about 5% so far. The Dow Jones index reached its highest place in five months by Tuesday’s closing bell.

Wednesday showed some backward motion from the previous gains, which was not entirely surprising.

Strong Manufacturing Sector

A manufacturing survey showed strong positive results, pointing to a sector which has grown at its fastest rate in six months. This data helps to fuel hopes that will set the tone of the market for the next few weeks to come.

Job Growth Expected

Analysts are expecting that the job report will show that the US economy has created an additional 150,000 jobs during the past month; a strong, although not spectacular, figure.

“Markets have put to one side concerns about Europe so far this week,” said Michael Hewson, markets analyst at CMC Markets.