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The meaty part of economic data this week concludes today with new Jobless Claims and a fresh Philly Fed survey. On top of that, we get earnings for the biggest of the big-box retailers, as Q2 earnings season heads into its final segment. Pre-market futures are mixed initially after these releases: the Dow is -5 points at this hour, the S&P 500 is +11 and the Nasdaq +62 points.
Initial Jobless Claims came in slightly lower than expected to 239K, and an improvement from the upwardly revised 250K the previous week. That 250K figure was the highest we’ve seen since mid-June, and may have carried a bit of the load from long-time trucking company Yellow’s bankruptcy. Continuing Claims, reported a week in arrears from new claims, reached 1.716 million — the first time this metric has breached 1.7 million since the second week in July.
The Philly Fed Index — a monthly productivity report from Philadelphia, the sixth-largest city in the U.S. at present — surprised to the positive for July: +12 is a nice improvement from the -10 expected, as well as he first month in positive territory since August of last year: 11 straight months, and 13 of 14. This is a decidedly different outcome than the Empire State survey — a similar metric for the entire state of New York, the fourth most populous state in the U.S. — which came in at -19 from an expected -1.4.
Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated Walmart (WMT - Free Report) put up an impressive beat-and-raise Q2 this morning, with the largest American big-box retailer posting earnings of $1.84 per share, beating the $1.69 in the Zacks consensus by +8.88% for its fifth-straight EPS surprise. Revenues of $161.63 billion in the quarter topped expectations by 1.13%. Shares initially sold marginally on the news, but are now riding into the green at this hour.
Walmart raised guidance for its full-year earnings to a range of $6.36-6.46 per share; analysts had been expecting $6.25. Its e-commerce segment rose +24% year over year, with net income rising +33%. Transactions and Average Ticket were both up, +2.9% and +3.4%, respectively. Shares are up +8.75% in the past six months, +10.9% year to date. Walmart is now up an additional +0.66% thus far in early trading ahead of the opening bell.
Leading Economic Indicators for July come out after today's open, expected to improve month over month but remain in negative territory. Although if this morning's luck holds out, we may see a positive surprise here, as well. After that we're through with economic prints until Truesday of next week. Dog days of August, and so forth.
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Weekly Jobless Claims Lag Expectations
The meaty part of economic data this week concludes today with new Jobless Claims and a fresh Philly Fed survey. On top of that, we get earnings for the biggest of the big-box retailers, as Q2 earnings season heads into its final segment. Pre-market futures are mixed initially after these releases: the Dow is -5 points at this hour, the S&P 500 is +11 and the Nasdaq +62 points.
Initial Jobless Claims came in slightly lower than expected to 239K, and an improvement from the upwardly revised 250K the previous week. That 250K figure was the highest we’ve seen since mid-June, and may have carried a bit of the load from long-time trucking company Yellow’s bankruptcy. Continuing Claims, reported a week in arrears from new claims, reached 1.716 million — the first time this metric has breached 1.7 million since the second week in July.
The Philly Fed Index — a monthly productivity report from Philadelphia, the sixth-largest city in the U.S. at present — surprised to the positive for July: +12 is a nice improvement from the -10 expected, as well as he first month in positive territory since August of last year: 11 straight months, and 13 of 14. This is a decidedly different outcome than the Empire State survey — a similar metric for the entire state of New York, the fourth most populous state in the U.S. — which came in at -19 from an expected -1.4.
Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)-rated Walmart (WMT - Free Report) put up an impressive beat-and-raise Q2 this morning, with the largest American big-box retailer posting earnings of $1.84 per share, beating the $1.69 in the Zacks consensus by +8.88% for its fifth-straight EPS surprise. Revenues of $161.63 billion in the quarter topped expectations by 1.13%. Shares initially sold marginally on the news, but are now riding into the green at this hour.
Walmart raised guidance for its full-year earnings to a range of $6.36-6.46 per share; analysts had been expecting $6.25. Its e-commerce segment rose +24% year over year, with net income rising +33%. Transactions and Average Ticket were both up, +2.9% and +3.4%, respectively. Shares are up +8.75% in the past six months, +10.9% year to date. Walmart is now up an additional +0.66% thus far in early trading ahead of the opening bell.
Leading Economic Indicators for July come out after today's open, expected to improve month over month but remain in negative territory. Although if this morning's luck holds out, we may see a positive surprise here, as well. After that we're through with economic prints until Truesday of next week. Dog days of August, and so forth.