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Pre-market futures are mixed at this hour, more or less at levels we had seen before this morning’s economic reports, of which there are a few. The Dow is -26 points currently, while the S&P 500, Nasdaq and small-cap Russell 2000 are all up: +33 points, +246 points and +4 points, respectively.
Weekly Jobless Claims Improve to Pre-Covid Levels
Probably the singularly most well-behaved employment metric over the past year has been Weekly Jobless Claims, but it appears we are now coming down to historic lows: +198K on Initial Jobless Claims is the lowest since the week of Thanksgiving last year, which was something of a seasonal outlier. This follows a slight downward revision to +207K the prior week. New claims have fallen four times in the past five prints.
Sub-200K Initial Jobless Claims is a big deal. Considering the size of the modern labor force, this is the smallest amount of laid-off workers since 2019 — a year ahead of the Covid pandemic, which changed everything — which itself represented a half-century low in new claims.
Combine this with Continuing Claims, which, at +1.884 million, is sub-2 million in now four of the past six weeks — another indication that the labor market is not only surviving, but thriving. The previous week was revised down from +1.91 million to +1.90 million. Stability in the current labor market even showed up in monthly Household Survey numbers, which showed a tick-down in the Unemployment Rate to +4.4%, the first month-over-month downward move since last summer.
Imports & Exports Improve for November
A headline on Import Prices for November (delayed due to the 6+ week government shutdown late last year) popped up +0.1% from 0.0% reported for September (October numbers were never filed, as they occurred over said government shutdown). This is obviously a positive print, although it comes on overall lower volumes, which is mostly due to seasonal activity.
Exports in November, bolstered by higher prices for fruits and vegetables which brought Agriculture exports +1.3%, came in +0.5% overall in this morning’s report. Year over year, this tallied +3.3%, which came down from the +3.9% September read (see above for what happened to October’s report), the lowest since +3.2% reported in August.
Regional Manufacturing Better than Expected
Both the Philly Fed Manufacturing Survey and Empire State Manufacturing Index are out this morning, both for the month of January. Philly Fed brought the first positive results in four months, to +12.6 from an expected -4.5, with the prior month revised upward to -8.8 from -10.2 originally posted. Empire State reached +7.7, the third month of four in positive territory, and the third month of four with a plus-sign — after five of seven previous months with negative headline prints.
Q4 Earnings Beats Ahead of the Bell
If all this good news is not enough, check out this morning’s quarterly earnings reports:
Goldman SachsGS posted a +19% positive earnings surprise, with $14.01 per share easily surpassing the $11.77 expected. Morgan StanleyMS similarly outperformed expectations, +2.68 per share versus $2.41 projected, for a +11.2% surprise. BlackRockBLK brought in $13.16 per share this morning, above the $12.39 analysts were looking for.
We also saw results this morning from global chipmaking foundry Taiwan SemiconductorTSM, which soundly beat estimates on its bottom line: $3.14 per share versus $2.82 in the Zacks consensus, for a +11.35% earnings beat. The company benefited greatly in the quarter from AI infrastructure demand, which it expects will continue in 2026, and shares are up +3.5% at this hour on the news.
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Rockwell Automation will benefit from improving order levels, expanding portfolio of products, solutions and services, growth investments and acquisitions. Focus on productivity will drive margins.
Strong cash flows in the storage and records management business and a focus on the data center business are positives for Iron Mountain. Strategic acquisitions supplement organic growth.
Doximity leverages unmatched physician reach, AI-driven tools, and expanding revenue streams to solidify its role as healthcare’s essential B2B engagement platform with strong profitability.
TripAdvisor's experience-led transformation accelerates marketplace growth with expanding profitability and robust cash generation, positioning the company for sustainable value creation.
Whirlpool has been benefiting from its cost takeout and pricing actions. The company remains on track to deliver about $200 million of cost takeout for 2025.
Guess? is positioned for long-term growth, leveraging strategic acquisitions, strong Europe & Americas Wholesale performance, and multi-channel expansion to boost global presence.
Philips’ near-term profitability is likely to be hurt by lower consumer demand, stiff competition, unfavorable foreign exchange, and consequences of the Respironics field action.
Supply chain issues, as well as the imposition of tariffs on imports, remain concerns for this stock. Unprecedented labor disruption also poses a threat to RTX.
Home Depot tightens its fiscal 2025 outlook as housing softness, consumer caution, and low storm activity weigh on Q4, even as GMS boosts overall sales growth.
Softer demand in Europe and China is likely to weigh on Dow's volumes. Weaker siloxane prices and higher feedstock and turnaround costs may also impact its results.
Glaukos faces hurdles from MIGS reimbursement cuts, uneven iDose coverage, and a looming corneal franchise disruption as Photrexa transitions to Epioxa.
Brighthouse Financial's increasing expenses weighing on margin expansion, high debt level leading to higher leverage coupled with lower interest coverage keeps us on the sideline.
Netflix’s accelerating ad business, AI-driven innovation, record engagement on content strength, focus on originals across various genres and languages are key positives.
Central Garden & Pet advances digital, supply chain and product innovation while driving margin gains and M&A, backed by strong financials and a focused Cost and Simplicity program.
AbbVie’s Skyrizi and Rinvoq, are performing extremely well, bolstered by approval in new indications, which should support top-line growth in the next few years.
Intel’s leading position in PC market, strength in servers, growing clout in software, IoT & ADAS domains and headway in process technology are positive indicators of future growth prospects.