Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
Pre-market futures are following yesterday’s flat close with a step into the red this morning. An East Coast/Gulf Coast port strike ahead of holiday shopping season enters Day 3 today, the cleanup from Hurricane Helene — where a cleanup is even possible — is likely to prove one of the worst natural disasters in terms of property damage in U.S. history, and tensions in the Middle East have yet to cool.
The Dow is down -110 points at this hour, following record closing highs set several times over the past couple weeks of trading. The S&P 500, also just off record highs, is down -9 points currently, with the Nasdaq -56 and the small-cap Russell 2000 -9 points as of 40 minutes prior to the open.
Weekly Jobless Claims Remain Lukewarm
Initial Jobless Claims for last week came in slightly higher than expected — 225K versus 220K anticipated — and up from the slightly upwardly revised 219K from the previous week. But these remain very well-behaved numbers overall, especially after mid-summer we were seeing 250K new claims, which helped foment a bit of fear in the labor market.
Continuing Claims reached 1.826 million for two weeks ago (reporting a week in arrears from new claims, as always), from a downwardly revised 1.827 million in the previous week. This is now the third straight week longer-term jobless claims have hovered below 1.83 million, which continues to betray the larger narrative that U.S. employment is weakening.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll get our big Jobs Report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which is expected to have brought in 150K new positions last month, following 142K recorded the previous month. The Unemployment Rate is expected to stay at +4.2%. All of these figures are stronger than many market participants have been wary of.
After Today’s Open: ISM Services, Factory Orders
Once the opening bell rings this morning, we’ll be looking forward to the latest monthly reports on the Services sector. First up is the final S&P Services PMI, expected to come in in-line for September from the 55.4 reported in August. Note this is well above the 50 level — indicating growth as opposed to contraction — and a place S&P Manufacturing PMI currently can only dream about.
The bigger report will be ISM Services, which is also expected to be in line in September from August at 51.5%. For the past year, we’ve seen ISM Services numbers trending between 49 and 54% — largely above the 50 level, so mostly providing growth in Services. Again, these numbers are a big improvement from ISAM Manufacturing, which was last above 50 back in March of this year.
Factory Orders are also expected this morning, reporting for August. Expectations are for 0.0% month over month, cooling notably from the +5.0% reported for July. (That +5% print a month ago was the highest in four years, back to the nether regions of the Covid pandemic. Should they surprise to the downside, into negative territory, this would be the fourth such month of 2024.)
Questions or comments about this article and/or author? Click here>>
5 Stocks Set to Double
Each was handpicked by a Zacks expert as the #1 favorite stock to gain +100% or more in 2024. While not all picks can be winners, previous recommendations have soared +143.0%, +175.9%, +498.3% and +673.0%.
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 >>Invesco QQQ (QQQ): ETF Research Reports
SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY): ETF Research Reports
SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA): ETF Research Reports
To read this article on Zacks.com click here.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
