As investors arrive back to their desks en masse after the holiday weekend, they'll be relieved to see a stock market that seems to be smoothing out and recovering some of August's losses.

Though Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke's speech Friday in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, hinted at a rate cut after the Fed's meeting on September 18, market watchers will be scrutinizing new economic data for signs of whether those hopes will come to fruition.

Today, Wall Street will hear from major American car manufacturers about August auto and truck sales. Analysts predict both to be up from July; auto sales at 5.0 million units from 4.9 million, and truck sales jumping to 7.0 million units from 6.7 million.

Revised productivity figures for the second quarter will be out on Thursday, and are expected to show a 2.3 percent growth 1.8 percent in the first quarter.  

The August Employment Report comes out on Friday, and reflects a largely unchanged situation in the labor market. The major movement from July numbers is expected to be in payrolls, forecast to climb to 120,000 in August from 92,000 in July.  

Unemployment for August is seen as hovering at July's 4.6 percent, while hourly earnings continue a trend of 0.3 percent growth.  The average workweek is forecast to stay at 33.8 hours.