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Markets Keep at All-Time Highs - Lots of Data Expected This Week
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Monday, September 29, 2025
Market indexes spent all day in the green today, continuing new all-time high levels through a few news items throughout the day. Not all of it is positive, however: a government shutdown on Capitol Hill would keep things like Friday’s BLS jobs numbers from being released. Also, a weekend decision by OPEC+ to raise oil production by 137K barrels per day helped drop WTI barrel priced -3.8%, while Exxon Mobil (XOM - Free Report) and BP (BP - Free Report) slid -2.5% on the day.
Thus, market indexes pared their earlier gains today. The Dow added +68 points through the course of the day, the S&P 500 — now approaching its fifth-straight positive trading month — gained +17 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq grew +107 points. The small-cap Russell 2000 was up +2 points. These indexes had been up +208, +36, +175 and +15 points, respectively.
Pending Home Sales Shoot Higher in August
The housing market got a boost last month, with Pending Home Sales increasing +4.0% from an expectation of “unched” and an upwardly revised -0.3% the previous month. Mortgage rates easing slightly have helped pending home sales — those with signed contracts at the time of the survey — in August, which may portend well for September data, as well. Pending home sales had spent six of the prior seven months with negative monthly headlines.
Newly-built homes were up in the month, and we’ve seen plenty of pent-up demand in the housing space. Traffic expectation is up to +19% from +16%, and homebuilders Lennar (LEN - Free Report) , Pulte Home (PHM - Free Report) and KB Home (KBH - Free Report) are all up more than +1% in today’s trading session, as a result.
Cannabis to Get Eased Scheduled Drug Status?
The Trump administration is openly considering easing the drug category of cannabis products like marijuana from its current Schedule I designation to Schedule III. Other Schedule I drugs are considered without medical benefit, such as heroin, morphine and LSD. Schedule II drugs include still-dangerous substances like fentanyl and cocaine. Schedule III drugs include ketamine and anabolic steroids. As a result, pure-play cannabis stock Tilray (TLRY) grew +60% today.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Tuesday
We have a decent amount of economic data hitting the tape tomorrow, including Case-Shiller Home Prices for July, and the Chicago Business Barometer and Consumer Confidence for September. Case-Shiller prices were +2.1% the previous month, demonstrating a slowing down of runaway housing costs. Chicago Business is expected to tick up a point and a half to +43.0, while Consumer Confidence is expected to narrow slightly to 95.8.
The first of the “Jobs Week” reports this week also come out Tuesday morning: the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for August. We look for this level to tick down to 7.1 million from 7.2 million in July. This illustrates how job opportunities are starting to dry up from the 7.7 million we saw in May and the 8.0 million back in November of last year. A 7.1 million headline would be the slimmest number of job openings since September of 2024.
Nike (NKE - Free Report) reports fiscal Q1 earnings after tomorrow’s close. This company is a solid gauge for affects of tariff policy on goods-producing businesses, and as such is expected to bring in -60% earnings growth year over year and -4.95% on revenues from a year ago. Double-digit negative earnings levels are expected for both new quarter and the current fiscal year. That said, Nike is riding eight-straight quarters of outperforming earnings expectations.
Image: Bigstock
Markets Keep at All-Time Highs - Lots of Data Expected This Week
Monday, September 29, 2025
Market indexes spent all day in the green today, continuing new all-time high levels through a few news items throughout the day. Not all of it is positive, however: a government shutdown on Capitol Hill would keep things like Friday’s BLS jobs numbers from being released. Also, a weekend decision by OPEC+ to raise oil production by 137K barrels per day helped drop WTI barrel priced -3.8%, while Exxon Mobil (XOM - Free Report) and BP (BP - Free Report) slid -2.5% on the day.
Thus, market indexes pared their earlier gains today. The Dow added +68 points through the course of the day, the S&P 500 — now approaching its fifth-straight positive trading month — gained +17 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq grew +107 points. The small-cap Russell 2000 was up +2 points. These indexes had been up +208, +36, +175 and +15 points, respectively.
Pending Home Sales Shoot Higher in August
The housing market got a boost last month, with Pending Home Sales increasing +4.0% from an expectation of “unched” and an upwardly revised -0.3% the previous month. Mortgage rates easing slightly have helped pending home sales — those with signed contracts at the time of the survey — in August, which may portend well for September data, as well. Pending home sales had spent six of the prior seven months with negative monthly headlines.
Newly-built homes were up in the month, and we’ve seen plenty of pent-up demand in the housing space. Traffic expectation is up to +19% from +16%, and homebuilders Lennar (LEN - Free Report) , Pulte Home (PHM - Free Report) and KB Home (KBH - Free Report) are all up more than +1% in today’s trading session, as a result.
Cannabis to Get Eased Scheduled Drug Status?
The Trump administration is openly considering easing the drug category of cannabis products like marijuana from its current Schedule I designation to Schedule III. Other Schedule I drugs are considered without medical benefit, such as heroin, morphine and LSD. Schedule II drugs include still-dangerous substances like fentanyl and cocaine. Schedule III drugs include ketamine and anabolic steroids. As a result, pure-play cannabis stock Tilray (TLRY) grew +60% today.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Tuesday
We have a decent amount of economic data hitting the tape tomorrow, including Case-Shiller Home Prices for July, and the Chicago Business Barometer and Consumer Confidence for September. Case-Shiller prices were +2.1% the previous month, demonstrating a slowing down of runaway housing costs. Chicago Business is expected to tick up a point and a half to +43.0, while Consumer Confidence is expected to narrow slightly to 95.8.
The first of the “Jobs Week” reports this week also come out Tuesday morning: the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for August. We look for this level to tick down to 7.1 million from 7.2 million in July. This illustrates how job opportunities are starting to dry up from the 7.7 million we saw in May and the 8.0 million back in November of last year. A 7.1 million headline would be the slimmest number of job openings since September of 2024.
Nike (NKE - Free Report) reports fiscal Q1 earnings after tomorrow’s close. This company is a solid gauge for affects of tariff policy on goods-producing businesses, and as such is expected to bring in -60% earnings growth year over year and -4.95% on revenues from a year ago. Double-digit negative earnings levels are expected for both new quarter and the current fiscal year. That said, Nike is riding eight-straight quarters of outperforming earnings expectations.
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