We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience. This includes personalizing content and advertising. To learn more, click here. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, revised Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
You are being directed to ZacksTrade, a division of LBMZ Securities and licensed broker-dealer. ZacksTrade and Zacks.com are separate companies. The web link between the two companies is not a solicitation or offer to invest in a particular security or type of security. ZacksTrade does not endorse or adopt any particular investment strategy, any analyst opinion/rating/report or any approach to evaluating individual securities.
If you wish to go to ZacksTrade, click OK. If you do not, click Cancel.
Markets are mixed in today’s pre-market, akin to green shoots from the scorched-earth trading early in the week. OK, that’s a little dramatic, but it is the second week in a row we saw significant selling in the first three days. Last week, we went positive Thursday and Friday, though still closed the week moderately lower.
The Dow is -5 points at this hour, the S&P 500 +6 and the Nasdaq +50. A rollback to tech names, perhaps? Valuations looking good again?
Too early to tell. What we have seen so far this morning are new Initial Jobless Claims, which dropped to 444K last week — a new pandemic-era low and beneath the 452K consensus estimate. It was also down 34K from the previous week’s upwardly revised 478K. We’ve come a long way from a year ago, which was still registering around 1.9 million new jobless claims per week.
Continuing Claims seem to have hit a wall, however; after coming down quite uniformly over the past year, the read from two weeks ago (Continuing Claims report a week in arrears from Initial Claims) reached 3.75 million, worse than the downwardly revised 3.64 million from the previous week. This pandemic low was reached back in the second week of April; we’ve plateau’d here, for the most part, since then.
The Philly Fed survey for May disappointed this morning, hitting 31.5 — below the 40.5 expected and the strong 50.2 from April. So while expectations were for a pullback in productivity for the 6th-largest city in the U.S., this is the lowest read we’ve seen since February. Since bouncing back last year from its unprecedented drop when pandemic issues cratered the economy, we’ve bumped along basically between +10 and +50 since.
Wednesday evening, Ford (F - Free Report) unveiled its F-150 Lightning — the electric vehicle (EV) version of the iconic pickup truck, which happens to be the biggest-selling vehicle in the U.S. in recent memory. Two electric motors and a battery pack will replace the internal combustion engine, which was test-driven by none other than President Biden earlier this week.
The reveal appears to have been as successful as CEO Jim Farley may have expected: 20K pre-orders have been made since just last night. Ford expects the F-150 Lightning will be rolling off showroom floors sometime next spring.
It has been suggested that the growth-to-cyclicals trading cycles have given way to heavier selling and filling gaps in the past couple weeks. If so, it seems a good way to keep stock values hovering around “reasonable” levels especially with Q1 earnings season now in its final week or so. Infrastructure on Capitol Hill will continue being bandied about, although political headlines have focused elsewhere of late. Will the Infrastructure Bill be the next market catalyst?
Each was hand-picked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2020. Each comes from a different sector and has unique qualities and catalysts that could fuel exceptional growth.
Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
Image: Bigstock
Jobless Claims Hit Pandemic Low: 444K
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Markets are mixed in today’s pre-market, akin to green shoots from the scorched-earth trading early in the week. OK, that’s a little dramatic, but it is the second week in a row we saw significant selling in the first three days. Last week, we went positive Thursday and Friday, though still closed the week moderately lower.
The Dow is -5 points at this hour, the S&P 500 +6 and the Nasdaq +50. A rollback to tech names, perhaps? Valuations looking good again?
Too early to tell. What we have seen so far this morning are new Initial Jobless Claims, which dropped to 444K last week — a new pandemic-era low and beneath the 452K consensus estimate. It was also down 34K from the previous week’s upwardly revised 478K. We’ve come a long way from a year ago, which was still registering around 1.9 million new jobless claims per week.
Continuing Claims seem to have hit a wall, however; after coming down quite uniformly over the past year, the read from two weeks ago (Continuing Claims report a week in arrears from Initial Claims) reached 3.75 million, worse than the downwardly revised 3.64 million from the previous week. This pandemic low was reached back in the second week of April; we’ve plateau’d here, for the most part, since then.
The Philly Fed survey for May disappointed this morning, hitting 31.5 — below the 40.5 expected and the strong 50.2 from April. So while expectations were for a pullback in productivity for the 6th-largest city in the U.S., this is the lowest read we’ve seen since February. Since bouncing back last year from its unprecedented drop when pandemic issues cratered the economy, we’ve bumped along basically between +10 and +50 since.
Wednesday evening, Ford (F - Free Report) unveiled its F-150 Lightning — the electric vehicle (EV) version of the iconic pickup truck, which happens to be the biggest-selling vehicle in the U.S. in recent memory. Two electric motors and a battery pack will replace the internal combustion engine, which was test-driven by none other than President Biden earlier this week.
The reveal appears to have been as successful as CEO Jim Farley may have expected: 20K pre-orders have been made since just last night. Ford expects the F-150 Lightning will be rolling off showroom floors sometime next spring.
It has been suggested that the growth-to-cyclicals trading cycles have given way to heavier selling and filling gaps in the past couple weeks. If so, it seems a good way to keep stock values hovering around “reasonable” levels especially with Q1 earnings season now in its final week or so. Infrastructure on Capitol Hill will continue being bandied about, although political headlines have focused elsewhere of late. Will the Infrastructure Bill be the next market catalyst?
Questions or comments about this article and/or its author? Click here>>
5 Stocks Set to Double
Each was hand-picked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2020. Each comes from a different sector and has unique qualities and catalysts that could fuel exceptional growth.
Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
Today, See These 5 Potential Home Runs >>