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We’re mixed in pre-market indices this morning, with the Dow -61 points (-0.18%) and the small-cap Russell 2000 down marginally lower, -0.25%. The S&P 500 balances out on the other side, +0.38% at this hour, while the Nasdaq, still riding off NVIDIA’s (NVDA - Free Report) blowout Q2 report yesterday after the close, and its A.I. play ringing bells throughout the tech-heavy index, is +146 points (+0.97%) currently.
Initial Jobless Claims continues its depiction of a healthy economy with an historically high number of Americans employed: 230K new jobless claims is below the 240K expected, which was identical to the upwardly revised previous week. This weekly figure, seasonally significant in that August is usually the time of dormant corporate change, is the lowest we’ve seen since the last week in July.
Continuing Claims also came in lower: 1.702 million is below the downwardly revised 1.711 million reported in the previous week. Cycle highs were above 1.8 million, and we haven’t seen those since April. In short, sub-250K on new claims and, really, sub-1.9 or 2 million on longer-term jobless claims is where we want to be to see continued strength in the labor market.
Preliminary Durable Goods Orders for July are also out this morning: -5.2% is a notably deeper cut than the expected -4.1%, and the lowest single-month print since April 2020 (not generally considered a desirable comparable time period), and a big swing from the slightly downwardly revised +4.4% the previous month. However, strip out volatile transportation costs, and this -5.2% swings to +0.5%. Non-defense ex-aircraft, we see +0.1%, in-line with expectations. To reiterate, though: these are preliminary numbers, subject to almost certain revisions.
Dollar Tree (DLTR - Free Report) , a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated company with a Value-Growth-Momentum score of A, reported modest beats on both top and bottom lines in its Q2 report this morning: earnings of 91 cents per share outperformed the Zacks consensus by 3 cents (though still well off the $1.60 per share posted in the previous-year quarter), on $7.33 billion in quarterly revenues, which topped consensus by +1.43% (and better than the $6.77 billion posted a year ago). The stock is down -6% in early trading, on margin pressures and shrinkage adding to near-term challenges.
The Economic Symposium at Jackson Hole, WY is under way this morning, with prominent speakers and presenters giving their take on the current state of the economy and their outlooks for the future, but the headline performer will be Fed Chair Jay Powell, though not until tomorrow. Because the Fed does not meet in the month of August (thus no interest rate changes until at least its next meeting four weeks from yesterday), tomorrow’s address from Powell will amount to a Fed meeting by proxy.
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Initial Jobless Claims Come in Lower
We’re mixed in pre-market indices this morning, with the Dow -61 points (-0.18%) and the small-cap Russell 2000 down marginally lower, -0.25%. The S&P 500 balances out on the other side, +0.38% at this hour, while the Nasdaq, still riding off NVIDIA’s (NVDA - Free Report) blowout Q2 report yesterday after the close, and its A.I. play ringing bells throughout the tech-heavy index, is +146 points (+0.97%) currently.
Initial Jobless Claims continues its depiction of a healthy economy with an historically high number of Americans employed: 230K new jobless claims is below the 240K expected, which was identical to the upwardly revised previous week. This weekly figure, seasonally significant in that August is usually the time of dormant corporate change, is the lowest we’ve seen since the last week in July.
Continuing Claims also came in lower: 1.702 million is below the downwardly revised 1.711 million reported in the previous week. Cycle highs were above 1.8 million, and we haven’t seen those since April. In short, sub-250K on new claims and, really, sub-1.9 or 2 million on longer-term jobless claims is where we want to be to see continued strength in the labor market.
Preliminary Durable Goods Orders for July are also out this morning: -5.2% is a notably deeper cut than the expected -4.1%, and the lowest single-month print since April 2020 (not generally considered a desirable comparable time period), and a big swing from the slightly downwardly revised +4.4% the previous month. However, strip out volatile transportation costs, and this -5.2% swings to +0.5%. Non-defense ex-aircraft, we see +0.1%, in-line with expectations. To reiterate, though: these are preliminary numbers, subject to almost certain revisions.
Dollar Tree (DLTR - Free Report) , a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated company with a Value-Growth-Momentum score of A, reported modest beats on both top and bottom lines in its Q2 report this morning: earnings of 91 cents per share outperformed the Zacks consensus by 3 cents (though still well off the $1.60 per share posted in the previous-year quarter), on $7.33 billion in quarterly revenues, which topped consensus by +1.43% (and better than the $6.77 billion posted a year ago). The stock is down -6% in early trading, on margin pressures and shrinkage adding to near-term challenges.
The Economic Symposium at Jackson Hole, WY is under way this morning, with prominent speakers and presenters giving their take on the current state of the economy and their outlooks for the future, but the headline performer will be Fed Chair Jay Powell, though not until tomorrow. Because the Fed does not meet in the month of August (thus no interest rate changes until at least its next meeting four weeks from yesterday), tomorrow’s address from Powell will amount to a Fed meeting by proxy.