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Pre-Markets Mixed on Jobless Claims, Retail Sales & More
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Thursday, January 16, 2025
Today’s pre-market is rife with economic data. Even though yesterday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) carried as much impact by itself as these numbers together might expect to, they’re still worth giving our attention. The Dow is -147 points lower at this moment ahead of the open, while the S&P 500 is +7 and the Nasdaq +74 points.
Weekly Jobless Claims Remain Cool
Now that we’re pulling Weekly Jobless Claims data from the holiday shopping season — which pulled additional temporary retail and warehouse jobs that may have skewed overall labor force measurements — we’re still seeing numbers complimentary with a strong economy. Initial Claims came in slightly higher than expected at +217K, and above the slightly upwardly revised +203K the previous week, but still a long way from the 250K+ we were starting to see in the final quarter of 2024.
Continuing Claims, reported a week in arrears from new claims, so may still reflect some holiday conditions, were lower: 1.859 million, from 1.867 million reported the previous week. Again, in late 2024 we’d seen three separate weeks post 1.9 million longer-term jobless claims, appearing headed for 2 million in a week, which we haven’t see for more than three years.
Jobless claims are tough numbers to look at with the Covid pandemic having blasted those weekly numbers into outer space for more than a year. But if we go back to right before the March 2020 leap in claims due to Covid, we were hovering around 1.8 million longer-term claims. We’re basically right there again today.
Retail Sales Mixed but Muted
December Retail Sales numbers also came out this morning, reaching +0.4%. This is 10 basis points (bps) lower than the +0.5% expected and the unchanged +0.7% from the previous month. As retailers themselves generally speak favorably of 2024’s holiday shopping season, this lower figure does seem a tad surprising. Then again, the November +0.7% was the strongest we’d seen in months, so perhaps shopping season is now spread out over multiple months.
Stripping out big-ticket auto sales, we also see a +0.4% print, with ex-auto and goods coming in at +0.3%. These are healthy underlying retail sales numbers, holiday season shopping or not. The Control number — which gets sent up the chain of other economic metrics, such as PCE — was a very strong +0.7% last month; in fact, it’s the best Retail Control figure since September.
Imports/Exports Warmer than Expected
Of all today’s economic data, Imports and Exports for December looks to be the most aligned with inflation metrics. That said, monthly Imports swung to a positive +0.1% from an expected -0.3%, matching the previous two months. Strip out petroleum prices, this rises to +0.2%. Year over year, we come in 10 bps higher than expected to +2.2%, up from the +1.4% revision from the previous print.
Exports also came in 10 bps ahead of estimates, to +0.3%, with the year-over-year read coming in at +1.8% — the highest we’ve seen in two years. Obviously, higher export prices are good for the U.S. economy, although they do make us consider our relative valuation compared to our trading partners around the world, especially with a notably strong U.S. dollar.
Philly Fed Jumps to +44.3 — Highest in More than 3 Years
Regional manufacturing has been a big challenge over the past few years. In the case of the Philly Fed, which tracks manufacturing productivity in the region of the sixth-largest city in the U.S., it has spent most of the past 2 1/2 years in negative territory. This changes today, with its January print coming in at +44.3 — easily the highest level we’ve seen since the +44.4 back in April of 2021.
Compare this with the Empire State survey out earlier this week, which tracked -12.6 for January. The New York State-oriented index last saw strong monthly numbers back in November of last year before heading back to dormant territory. Consider this when looking at Philly Fed: it may be more a burst of relief than a re-set of manufacturing expectations going forward.
More Big Banks Post Beats in Q4
This morning, we see new earnings reports for Bank of America (BAC - Free Report) and Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) . Both major Wall Street banks outperformed earnings expectations now for 10 straight quarters, much as JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) and Wells Fargo (WFC - Free Report) did yesterday. Read the full reports for either bank below.
Image: Shutterstock
Pre-Markets Mixed on Jobless Claims, Retail Sales & More
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Today’s pre-market is rife with economic data. Even though yesterday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) carried as much impact by itself as these numbers together might expect to, they’re still worth giving our attention. The Dow is -147 points lower at this moment ahead of the open, while the S&P 500 is +7 and the Nasdaq +74 points.
Weekly Jobless Claims Remain Cool
Now that we’re pulling Weekly Jobless Claims data from the holiday shopping season — which pulled additional temporary retail and warehouse jobs that may have skewed overall labor force measurements — we’re still seeing numbers complimentary with a strong economy. Initial Claims came in slightly higher than expected at +217K, and above the slightly upwardly revised +203K the previous week, but still a long way from the 250K+ we were starting to see in the final quarter of 2024.
Continuing Claims, reported a week in arrears from new claims, so may still reflect some holiday conditions, were lower: 1.859 million, from 1.867 million reported the previous week. Again, in late 2024 we’d seen three separate weeks post 1.9 million longer-term jobless claims, appearing headed for 2 million in a week, which we haven’t see for more than three years.
Jobless claims are tough numbers to look at with the Covid pandemic having blasted those weekly numbers into outer space for more than a year. But if we go back to right before the March 2020 leap in claims due to Covid, we were hovering around 1.8 million longer-term claims. We’re basically right there again today.
Retail Sales Mixed but Muted
December Retail Sales numbers also came out this morning, reaching +0.4%. This is 10 basis points (bps) lower than the +0.5% expected and the unchanged +0.7% from the previous month. As retailers themselves generally speak favorably of 2024’s holiday shopping season, this lower figure does seem a tad surprising. Then again, the November +0.7% was the strongest we’d seen in months, so perhaps shopping season is now spread out over multiple months.
Stripping out big-ticket auto sales, we also see a +0.4% print, with ex-auto and goods coming in at +0.3%. These are healthy underlying retail sales numbers, holiday season shopping or not. The Control number — which gets sent up the chain of other economic metrics, such as PCE — was a very strong +0.7% last month; in fact, it’s the best Retail Control figure since September.
Imports/Exports Warmer than Expected
Of all today’s economic data, Imports and Exports for December looks to be the most aligned with inflation metrics. That said, monthly Imports swung to a positive +0.1% from an expected -0.3%, matching the previous two months. Strip out petroleum prices, this rises to +0.2%. Year over year, we come in 10 bps higher than expected to +2.2%, up from the +1.4% revision from the previous print.
Exports also came in 10 bps ahead of estimates, to +0.3%, with the year-over-year read coming in at +1.8% — the highest we’ve seen in two years. Obviously, higher export prices are good for the U.S. economy, although they do make us consider our relative valuation compared to our trading partners around the world, especially with a notably strong U.S. dollar.
Philly Fed Jumps to +44.3 — Highest in More than 3 Years
Regional manufacturing has been a big challenge over the past few years. In the case of the Philly Fed, which tracks manufacturing productivity in the region of the sixth-largest city in the U.S., it has spent most of the past 2 1/2 years in negative territory. This changes today, with its January print coming in at +44.3 — easily the highest level we’ve seen since the +44.4 back in April of 2021.
Compare this with the Empire State survey out earlier this week, which tracked -12.6 for January. The New York State-oriented index last saw strong monthly numbers back in November of last year before heading back to dormant territory. Consider this when looking at Philly Fed: it may be more a burst of relief than a re-set of manufacturing expectations going forward.
More Big Banks Post Beats in Q4
This morning, we see new earnings reports for Bank of America (BAC - Free Report) and Morgan Stanley (MS - Free Report) . Both major Wall Street banks outperformed earnings expectations now for 10 straight quarters, much as JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) and Wells Fargo (WFC - Free Report) did yesterday. Read the full reports for either bank below.
For more on BAC’s earnings, click here.
For more on MS’ earnings, click here.
Check out the updated Zacks Earnings Calendar here.
Questions or comments about this article and/or author? Click here>>