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CPI Inflation, Jobless Claims: Both Warmer Than Expected

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Thursday, October 10th, 2024

This month’s main inflation report is out this morning, with results a bit warmer than analysts were expecting. This has helped pre-market futures sink a little deeper into the red after a relatively strong session yesterday. The Dow is -76 points at this hour and the S&P 500 -14 — both of which closed at new all-time highs Wednesday — while the Nasdaq is down -73 points currently.
 

CPI for September: Warmer Across the Board


September’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers have all come in higher than consensus estimates. Headline month-over-month CPI reached +0.2%, equaling the prior month’s headline and 10 basis points (bps) above expectations. Core CPI month over month came in at +0.3%, again equal to August’s number. This is higher than the +0.1% reported in June and +0.2% from July, so we’re heading gently in the wrong direction here.

Year-over-year CPI on headline is known as the Inflation Rate, and this figure for September hit +2.4% — above the +2.3% anticipated but lower than +2.5% reported a month ago. For some helpful context, we remain at multi-year lows on the Inflation Rate: the last time we were this low was back in February of 2021, just as the first Covid immunizations were being widely distributed.

Core CPI year over year registered +3.3%, again 10 bps above expectations and back up to where we’d been back in June of this year. This has obviously been the stickiest metric for inflation, but for some further perspective, we are now at exactly half the +6.6% rate where we were two years ago. It is metrics like these, seen over a longer timeline, which help best explain why the Fed is now cutting interest rates.
 

Jobless Claims Also Heating Up: 248K, 1.86 Million


For weeks — nay, months — we’ve seen Weekly Jobless Claims coming in at or below expectations, both on new and longer-term jobless claims. These figures haven’t exactly jibed with monthly employment reports, but what we believed we were seeing was an accelerated rate of retirement in the labor force.

This morning, we see something different: Initial Jobless Claims have struck a new 52-week high at 258K — only the second time this year we’ve hit the 250K mark, and a clear surge higher than the unrevised 225K reported last week. This moves the four-week moving average new jobless claims to 231K.

Continuing Claims, reported a week in arrears from new claims, also came in hotter than expected: 1.861 million longer-term jobless claims was a big jump from the downwardly revised 1.819 million from the previous week. This is the highest print since mid-August this year, but still not at a level to cause anyone to hit the panic button.
 

Q3 Earnings Mixed for Delta Air Lines, Domino’s


We see mixed results for two household-name stocks reporting Q3 earnings this morning, but in mirror images of each other. Delta Air Lines (DAL - Free Report) came in light on its bottom line by 6 cents to $1.50 per share from the Zacks consensus, while Domino’s Pizza (DPZ - Free Report) posted a positive surprise of +13%: $4.19 per share versus $3.71 analysts were looking for. 

But it was Delta which outperformed on its top line — $15.68 billion, up +2% from expectations — while Domino’s missed: $1.08 billion was -1.72% below the Zacks consensus. Results in early trading are also mixed: Delta is -1.9% at this hour, working off some of its +26% year to date (and much higher than its early August lows), while Domino’s shares are +0.3% at this hour, adding to its weak +0.02% growth year to date.

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