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Initial Jobless Claims, one week after setting a new 44-year low, have buoyed back up another 20K claims this past week to 243K from an unrevised 223K claims the prior week. This is higher than the 238K expected by analysts, and does a bit to smooth out the drastic moves week to week, which pretty much remains in a range of 225K-250K, consistent with a healthy domestic labor market.
The four-week moving average also grew in the past week — now to 236,500 claims per week over the last month or so — but again, this is off last week’s historic low. It also comes a day after the ADP (ADP - Free Report) private sector jobs report brought in nearly 300K new jobs in the past month. Tomorrow is the big BLS non-farm payroll report, and the current estimate is for 197K new jobs for the month of February overall.
Long traders in oil & gas have sent WTI and Brent crude prices down, noteworthy as the WTI read has fallen below $50 per barrel for the first time in 2017. Brent remains north of $51 for now, but futures are down 2.7% ahead of today’s opening bell. There appears no clear catalyst for the downward move, although domestic supply continues to grow, keeping downward pressure on global oil prices. Recent lows, incidentally, were back in November 2016, when prices hit $42.20 per barrel.
ECB President Mario Draghi has announced the intent to keep dovish policy in place for the European Union (EU), continuing to buy back euros (though ratcheting down from EUR 80 billion to 60 billion ahead. Draghi also said the “cyclical recovery may be gaining momentum.” The EU inflation rate for 2017 is at 0.4% currently, and despite some push-back from German financiers, Draghi intends to keep monetary policy wide open for now.
Finally, Staples reported in-line earnings and guidance for its most recent quarter, marking a 4% drop year over year in EPS and -3% in revenues from a year ago. The company closed 13 stores in the quarter and plans on closing 70 total throughout fiscal 2017. Staples had a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) with a perfect Zacks Style Score: Value A, Growth A and Momentum A.
Image: Bigstock
Jobless Claims Bounce Back, Oil Futures Sink
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Initial Jobless Claims, one week after setting a new 44-year low, have buoyed back up another 20K claims this past week to 243K from an unrevised 223K claims the prior week. This is higher than the 238K expected by analysts, and does a bit to smooth out the drastic moves week to week, which pretty much remains in a range of 225K-250K, consistent with a healthy domestic labor market.
The four-week moving average also grew in the past week — now to 236,500 claims per week over the last month or so — but again, this is off last week’s historic low. It also comes a day after the ADP (ADP - Free Report) private sector jobs report brought in nearly 300K new jobs in the past month. Tomorrow is the big BLS non-farm payroll report, and the current estimate is for 197K new jobs for the month of February overall.
Long traders in oil & gas have sent WTI and Brent crude prices down, noteworthy as the WTI read has fallen below $50 per barrel for the first time in 2017. Brent remains north of $51 for now, but futures are down 2.7% ahead of today’s opening bell. There appears no clear catalyst for the downward move, although domestic supply continues to grow, keeping downward pressure on global oil prices. Recent lows, incidentally, were back in November 2016, when prices hit $42.20 per barrel.
ECB President Mario Draghi has announced the intent to keep dovish policy in place for the European Union (EU), continuing to buy back euros (though ratcheting down from EUR 80 billion to 60 billion ahead. Draghi also said the “cyclical recovery may be gaining momentum.” The EU inflation rate for 2017 is at 0.4% currently, and despite some push-back from German financiers, Draghi intends to keep monetary policy wide open for now.
Finally, Staples reported in-line earnings and guidance for its most recent quarter, marking a 4% drop year over year in EPS and -3% in revenues from a year ago. The company closed 13 stores in the quarter and plans on closing 70 total throughout fiscal 2017. Staples had a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) with a perfect Zacks Style Score: Value A, Growth A and Momentum A.
Mark Vickery
Senior Editor
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