One very large state failed to turn in their weekly jobless report. “Need a little wind here,” huh California?
Dow: 13,326, -19 (-0.14%) S&P 500: 1,433, +2 (+0.11%)
That come-from-behind Yankees win over the O’s last night was a thriller (we enjoy a good crab cake and have plenty of friends from the beautiful metropolis that is Baltimore, but draw the line at athletic allegiance). Today’s market performance was the opposite of last night’s thriller. Impressive weekly jobless claims numbers (with an interesting twist) rallied stocks early on, but then stocks sputtered into the negative at the finish. Although the S&P 500 eked out a gain, blue chip stocks fell for the 3rd day this week as the Dow slipped down 19 points.
Weekly Jobless Claims fall big, but one large state’s numbers are omitted
The number of Americans filing for first time unemployment benefits plummeted by 30,000 over the last week, its biggest decline since July. The number of weekly jobless claims was 339,000 last week, the lowest reading since before the crisis, February 2008. Investors were freakin’ impressed to say the least – until a Barry Bonds type issue came into play (sorry for all the baseball references today). After stocks jumped on the news, a Labor Department economist said one large state caused the lion’s share of the drop. This remark leads economists to speculate that it must have been California, the only state large enough to cause such a huge swing, and cool enough to sleep in late today and forgot to turn in their numbers. Investors threw a * on the numbers and the markets didn’t recover. Overall, the jobs market has steadily been improving, as September’s monthly employment figures indicated, but today was written off as flawed data.
Post-Weekly jobless claims realization, markets slide on tomorrow’s earnings worries
As the morning’s job’s boost turned out to be phony, investor moral never recovered. Expectations for the 3rd quarter earnings season are low. Two big financial earnings babies are due tomorrow morning before the markets open – Wells Fargo and JPMorgan. Although the due dates are certain, at 7 and 8 AM eastern time tomorrow, whether these monster U.S. banks will produce beautiful earnings babies or depressing earnings duds is uncertain. Analysts will look closely at revenues, profits, and outlooks for the future – consensus is for all to be down. Markets sold off today and will spend their last moments praying to the lord of American finance, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, for something to cheer up about tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow:
- Financial stocks ticked up today ahead of tomorrow’s big bank earnings reports – JPMorgan is on deck…
- The Reuters/University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Poll sheds light on how consumers feel for the 1st half of October
- Biden vs. Ryan – VP debate tonight, baby
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