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Jobless Claims Steady; Mixed Q4 for AZN, HSY and PM
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This being Thursday morning, we see new Weekly Jobless Claims data ahead of the opening bell for trading. Initial Jobless Claims came in 2000 lower than projections to 218K, down 9K claims from the upwardly revised 227K posted the previous week. This is yet another sub-220K week, which we were routinely above from about March through early September of last year, but this remains consistent with an overall healthy labor market.
Continuing Claims had more recently been drawing closer scrutiny, as last week’s report brought us nearer to 1.9 million longer-term claims than we’d seen since mid-November of last year, but this week is notably down from there: 1.871 million, roughly in-line with estimates, follows the downwardly revised 1.894 million the previous week. While nobody expects us to return to the halcyon days of 1.6 million longer-term jobless claims we were seeing back in the Great Reopening, we’re nevertheless reassured that employment, on a finer week-over-week scale, is not falling off a cliff.
Q4 earnings season continues withy a fully open spigot this morning. Integrated energy supermajor ConocoPhillips (COP - Free Report) easily outperformed expectations on both top and bottom lines this morning, with earnings of $2.40 per share surpassing the $2.08 on the Zacks consensus, on $15.31 billion in revenues which outpaced the $14.47 billion anticipated. While still off year-ago numbers — and the energy market has been relatively soft this year — the company also announced an ordinary dividend of 58 cents per share paired with a VROC of 20 cents per share. COP stock is +1.4% on the news so far.
European Big Pharma staple AstraZeneca (AZN - Free Report) nearly doubled earnings expectations to $1.45 per ADR in its Q4 this morning (from 74 cents per share in the consensus estimate), but revenues came in slightly lower than forecast: $12.02 billion versus $12.07 billion. Yet guidance was fairly in-line looking ahead, though Deutsche Bank dropped its rating on the company that makes Farxiga, Fasenra, Seroquel, Symbicort and a host of other medications, which has helped a -6.8% sell-off in today’s pre-market.
American chocolatier Hershey’s (HSY - Free Report) also posted mixed results for its Q4 ahead of this morning’s open, with earnings of $2.02 per share coming in ahead of the $1.95 expected (and exactly in-line with the $2.02 per share from the year-ago quarter), but sales of $2.66 billion missed the Zacks consensus $2.77 billion. The company has an impressive streak of four straight years without an earnings miss, but early traders are selling the news, -2.45% in the pre-market session.
Tobacco major Philip Morris (PM - Free Report) reported yet another mixed Q4 early today, but in reverse: earnings of $1.36 per share missed the Zacks consensus $1.44 (and was 3 cents below the year-ago quarter’s tally) for a -5.56% negative earnings surprise, while quarterly sales of $9.05 billion topped estimates by nearly a full percentage point. The maker of Marlboro is seeing shares -2.5% so far this morning, nearly doubling the -2.8% performance year to date. For more on PM’s earnings, click here.
Pre-market futures are mixed at this hour, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in the red — -3 points and -9 points, respectively, while the blue-chip Dow index is currently up +55 points. The S&P is tantalizingly close to tipping the 5K all-time high, as it was at yesterday’s close, but remains just shy of this. The Dow continues to accelerate toward new all-time highs in light of an overall better-than-expected earnings season.
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Jobless Claims Steady; Mixed Q4 for AZN, HSY and PM
This being Thursday morning, we see new Weekly Jobless Claims data ahead of the opening bell for trading. Initial Jobless Claims came in 2000 lower than projections to 218K, down 9K claims from the upwardly revised 227K posted the previous week. This is yet another sub-220K week, which we were routinely above from about March through early September of last year, but this remains consistent with an overall healthy labor market.
Continuing Claims had more recently been drawing closer scrutiny, as last week’s report brought us nearer to 1.9 million longer-term claims than we’d seen since mid-November of last year, but this week is notably down from there: 1.871 million, roughly in-line with estimates, follows the downwardly revised 1.894 million the previous week. While nobody expects us to return to the halcyon days of 1.6 million longer-term jobless claims we were seeing back in the Great Reopening, we’re nevertheless reassured that employment, on a finer week-over-week scale, is not falling off a cliff.
Q4 earnings season continues withy a fully open spigot this morning. Integrated energy supermajor ConocoPhillips (COP - Free Report) easily outperformed expectations on both top and bottom lines this morning, with earnings of $2.40 per share surpassing the $2.08 on the Zacks consensus, on $15.31 billion in revenues which outpaced the $14.47 billion anticipated. While still off year-ago numbers — and the energy market has been relatively soft this year — the company also announced an ordinary dividend of 58 cents per share paired with a VROC of 20 cents per share. COP stock is +1.4% on the news so far.
European Big Pharma staple AstraZeneca (AZN - Free Report) nearly doubled earnings expectations to $1.45 per ADR in its Q4 this morning (from 74 cents per share in the consensus estimate), but revenues came in slightly lower than forecast: $12.02 billion versus $12.07 billion. Yet guidance was fairly in-line looking ahead, though Deutsche Bank dropped its rating on the company that makes Farxiga, Fasenra, Seroquel, Symbicort and a host of other medications, which has helped a -6.8% sell-off in today’s pre-market.
American chocolatier Hershey’s (HSY - Free Report) also posted mixed results for its Q4 ahead of this morning’s open, with earnings of $2.02 per share coming in ahead of the $1.95 expected (and exactly in-line with the $2.02 per share from the year-ago quarter), but sales of $2.66 billion missed the Zacks consensus $2.77 billion. The company has an impressive streak of four straight years without an earnings miss, but early traders are selling the news, -2.45% in the pre-market session.
Tobacco major Philip Morris (PM - Free Report) reported yet another mixed Q4 early today, but in reverse: earnings of $1.36 per share missed the Zacks consensus $1.44 (and was 3 cents below the year-ago quarter’s tally) for a -5.56% negative earnings surprise, while quarterly sales of $9.05 billion topped estimates by nearly a full percentage point. The maker of Marlboro is seeing shares -2.5% so far this morning, nearly doubling the -2.8% performance year to date. For more on PM’s earnings, click here.
Pre-market futures are mixed at this hour, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in the red — -3 points and -9 points, respectively, while the blue-chip Dow index is currently up +55 points. The S&P is tantalizingly close to tipping the 5K all-time high, as it was at yesterday’s close, but remains just shy of this. The Dow continues to accelerate toward new all-time highs in light of an overall better-than-expected earnings season.
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