Alan Valdes, vice president of trading at DME Securities, spoke with IBTimesTV on Friday, August 2 to discuss the July Jobs report and earnings for the week of August 5-9 from Groupon Inc (Nasdaq: GRPN), Time Warner Inc (NYSE: TWX), AOL, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), Ralph Lauren Corp (NYSE: RL) and more.

Valdes spoke about how important consumer spending is in relation to gross domestic product (GDP), and why investors will be keeping a close eye on retail earnings from companies such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) in the coming weeks.

Labor Department data revealed Friday the number of U.S. jobs created in July increased by 162,000, below Wall Street expectations for 185,000, according to analysts polled by Reuters. The unemployment rate ticked down to 7.4 percent in July from 7.6 percent in June, as the labor force participation rate fell to 63.4 percent last month from 63.5 percent in June.

Groupon Inc (Nasdaq: GRPN) is forecast to report second quarter earnings after the bell Wednesday of a loss of 3 cents per share, according to Zacks Investment Research, compared with earnings of 4 cents per share in the year ago quarter.

In May, Groupon reported earnings per share loss of 3 cents during the fiscal first quarter 2013, while revenue increased 8 percent to $601.4 million, compared with $559.3 million in the first quarter 2012.

As of 3 p.m. Eastern, shares of Groupon fell 1.25 percent to $8.59 in afternoon trade.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 39.95 points, or 0.26 percent, at 15,478.79. The S&P 500 Index was down 4.91 points, or 0.29 percent, at 1,692.47. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 8.94 points, or 0.24 percent, at 3,656.82.