On a surprisingly busy day of US economic reports, two employment indicators are in focus Thursday: the monthly Challenger layoffs report at 7:30 am ET and weekly jobless claims at 8:30 am ET.

For Challenger, Econoday has no consensus but investors will watch for an uptick from November when the figure was 71K. For weekly jobless claims, the consensus sees an uptick to 205K after a surprising 16K drop to 199K in the previous week.

The busy release schedule on Thursday includes productivity and costs for Q3 and international trade in goods & services for October.

The sleeper event of the morning is the New York Fed's survey of consumer inflation expectations for December due at 11 am ET. The Fed measure showed one-year inflation expectations unchanged at 3.2 percent in November from October. It also showed no change at 3.0 percent for the three- and five-year-ahead inflation expectations.

Market Focus details key factors in the coming day that will impact the economic outlook and the financial markets. These include central bank events, economic indicators, policymaker speeches as well as expected political and corporate developments.

Keeping up-to-date with event schedules and the economic calendar is key to understanding the global financial system. Econoday's Market Focus allows investors and policymakers to carefully track what will be making news and moving the financial markets in the coming day.