Thursday, June 18th, 2026
Pre-market futures are up again this morning, after a light purge Wednesday which began upon the latest FOMC meeting results and the inaugural press conference from new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Soaring at or near all-time highs, investors saw fit to take some profits upon learning that the Fed’s bias is toward increasing interest rates, not lowering them.
Here at Ahead of Wall Street, we addressed some of the key aspects of Warsh’s presser, which you can access here. Aside from the bias on future interest rates, Warsh put a considerable amount of weight on external analysis from “task forces” which will address key aspects that inform future interest rate decisions. And the Fed is doing away with forward projections we’d come to expect over the last 20 years of FOMC conduct.
The Dow is up +200 points currently, the S&P 500 is +60 and the Nasdaq is +480. The small-cap Russell 2000 is +35 points at this hour. Major indexes are up over the past five days, one month and year to date. The past month has also seen plenty of volatility; hopefully, this Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran will be the first step toward less mercurial day-to-day trading activity.
Jobless Claims Continue to Creep Upward: +226K
Thursday mornings usually bring us Weekly Jobless Claims data, and today is no different. Initial Jobless Claims came in a smidge above estimates at +226K, with the prior week’s revision increasing +1K to +230K. This marks the first time we’ve had three-straight new jobless claims prints this high since September of last year.
Continuing Claims reached +1.810 million two weeks ago (longer-term claims are reported a week in arrears from new claims), the first time in eight weeks we’ve gone above the 1.8 million level. This is not an issue in and of itself; only at around 2 million longer-term jobless claims per week do we recognize weakness in the labor market, historically. That said, if we begin to tack upward at the current rate (we’re up +50K per week on continuing claims since mid-April, +36K on initial claims) we may close in on that level sooner than we’ve been thinking.
Philly Fed Bounces Back from Negative May: +10.3
The latest manufacturing survey from Delaware to central Pennsylvania, Philly Fed, bounced back into positive territory for June, +10.3, after posting its first negative month of 2026 in May, -0.4%. In general, this index has improved markedly from where it had wallowed most of the past two years; we’d have to go back to the Great Reopening in early 2022 to see Philly Fed numbers as robust as they’ve been in 2026.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Today
This is the final trading day of the week, with Friday markets closed in observance of the Juneteenth holiday. Thus, no trading will be made upon the planned signage of the MOU to end the 14+ week war with Iran, which is scheduled for tomorrow. Oil prices are down -30% to the mid-$70s on both WTI and Brent crude indexes, in anticipation of everything going swimmingly on this front.
The next big economic report will come next week: Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), which is due a week from today. We’re in the summer trading months, with another week and a half of calendar Q2 remaining. Enjoy the relative calm while it lasts, and enjoy your three-day weekend!
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