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No one was mincing words this week following the April automotive sales results. JPMorgan said Ford’s sales were “weaker than expected,” Credit Suisse said total sales were “awful” and Morgan Stanley was unequivocal: “The bottom just fell out,” it said, describing April as “the worst month in a decade.”

April sales amounted to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of 14.4 million vehicles, troublingly below the 15 million estimate compiled by Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research.

In April, Ford posted a 19% decline in monthly sales. The consensus was for a 14% decline. General Motors sales fell 23% while Chrysler was down 29%. Both were wider than expected.

The culprit is obvious. Widespread weakness in the economy, and oil that seems to hit new highs daily, does not make for a good car buying environment. With many economists predicting a coming recession, it’s a wonder that anyone is looking to spend thousands of dollars on a new car. Tellingly, truck sales fell 24% while car sales were down 3%. In this kind of atmosphere, its not surprising at all that the vehicles that need the most gas were the ones least desired.

“These trends suggest that the recent strength in auto-sector socks is misplaced, or at least ill-timed,” Credit Suisse wrote, adding that the April results could indicate weakness in May as well.

Morgan Stanley forecast a SAAR estimate of 15.1 million for May, down from the 16.3 million posted in May, 2007.

The April jobs report offers a little something for both bulls and bears. Perhaps the only definite thing that can be said is the recession debate will continue.

The Labor Department said Friday the U.S. economy shed 20,000 jobs last month, not anywhere near the 75,000-85,000 decline forecast by most economists. The unemployment rate also unexpected fell to 5% from 5.1%, vs. expectations of a rise to 5.2%.

Predictions of a deep recession suddenly look premature, with a few economists now suggesting that the U.S. economy may even narrowly avoid the R-word. While payrolls have fallen for four straight months (with a total loss of 260,000), job lossese are way below the recession norm. During the last 3 recessions, there was a string of job losses that lasted for a minimum of 10 months, with the largest single month job loss at more than 300,000. (see related post).

“It appears that the economy is still just dancing around the perimeter separating recession from a growth slowdown,” said Michael Englund, economist at research firm Action Economics. “The payroll figures on their own still indicate that the economy is in recession, but just barely. And the outlook is more ambiguous when the other major indicators are added to the mix, as the bulk of other reports are notably out-performing a recession path.”

Or, as T.J. Marta, fixed-income strategist at RBC Capital Markets aruges, “if the current period does eventually get classified as a recession, it could very well be characterized as a ‘joblossless recession,’ much as the 2003 recovery was called the ‘jobless recovery.‘”

The jobs report give bears some ammunition, too. There are “some ‘devil-type’ characteristics in the employment report,” said Merrill Lynch’s North American Economist David Rosenberg. For example, he said, while companies did not cut as many positions as expected, they cut the hours instead. In addition, where there was a nice rebound in the household survey, it was all because of part-time employment. May is likely going to prove to be a much more difficult month for payrolls, he said, and “we could see the first triple-digit decline since March 2003.”

Stocks in the U.S. look set to open slightly higher Friday as investors keep an eye on payroll data scheduled to be released before the stock market opens.

Futures on the Dow Jones industrial average were up 6 points to 13,007, Nasdaq futures rose 1.50 to 1,984.75, and S&P 500 futures rose 0.20 to 1,411.80.

Wall Street shot higher Thursday as investors viewed the rising dollar and falling oil prices as promising signs for the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 189.87, or 1.48%, to close at 13,010, the Nasdaq composite index climbed 67.91, or 2.81%, to 2,480.71, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 23.75, or 1.71%, to 1,409.34. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.77% from 3.73% late Wednesday, and crude oil settled at $112.52 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

ECONOMIC DATA:

• Nonfarm payrolls for April, 8:30 a.m. ET, -75,000 estimate
• Unemployment rate for April, 8:30 a.m. ET, 5.2% estimate
• Factory orders for March, 10 a.m. ET, 0.3% estimate

EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS:

Company                 Symbol    Period     Estimate

Chevron Corp.             CVX       1Q         2.41
Duke Energy               DUK       1Q          .30
IntercontinentalExchange  ICE       1Q         1.28
NiSource                  NI        1Q          .76
Sempra Energy             SRE       1Q          .87
Viacom                    VIA       1Q          .41
Weyerhaeuser              WY        1Q         (.17)
Figures in parentheses denote losses.

AFTER-HOURS ACTION:

After Thursday’s close of trading, Sun Microsystems Inc. swung to a loss in its fiscal third quarter, and revealed plans to cut between 1,500 and 2,500 jobs. MetLife Inc. said its profit shrank 37% in the first quarter, Chesapeake Energy Corp. swung to a first-quarter loss because of commodity and interest-rate hedges, and Automatic Data Processing Inc.’s fiscal third-quarter profit rose 6%. Affiliated Computer Services Inc. said its fiscal third-quarter profit edged higher.