Jobless Claims Tick in Lower

Pre-market futures are flat this morning, again without much direction from outside influences. We’ve passed the 90-day tariff “deadline” with no ramifications; in fact, major indexes were up across the board, from a half of one percent to +1%. Currently, the Dow is -33 points, the S&P 500 is 0.0, the Nasdaq +13 points and the small-cap Russell 2000 +3.

Jobless Claims Moderate on Initial Side: 227K

Welcome news this Thursday morning are Weekly Jobless Claims levels, where Initial Jobless Claims are down for the fourth-consecutive week to 227K. Four weeks ago, we were at a near-term high 250K, which at the time appeared to be ramping up quickly amid corporate layoffs, DOGE plans, etc. Today’s level is the lowest we’ve seen since the week of May 17th.

Continuing Claims remain elevated as of two weeks ago (Continuing Claims report a week in arrears from Initial Claims), ticking up to 1.965 million from a downwardly revised 1.955 million the prior week. This is the highest weekly tally on longer-term jobless claims since November of 2021, when they were moving in the opposite direction. It’s also the fourth week of the past five above 1.95 million weekly longer-term claims.

Thus, while the employment market eases back into its summer casual months, it’s the longer-term claims that remain most concerning. We’re still sub-2 million continuing claims per week, and even when we get there it won’t be a sign that the labor market is falling off a cliff. It will, however, signal that the uncommonly robust jobs market we’ve seen since the start of the Great Reopening four years ago is begin to show some wear.

Earnings Results Ahead of the Opening Bell: DAL, CAG

Delta Air Lines DAL, which in some ways does what Alcoa AA did many moons ago: ring in a new quarterly earnings season. Q2 results were better than expected on both top and bottom lines for one of the top U.S. airlines, with earnings of $2.10 per share beating the Zacks consensus by 9 cents (though down from $2.36 per share a year ago), on $16.6 billion in revenues, almost in-line with the Q2 2024 tally and above the $16.01 billion expected.

Earnings guidance was also raised for both Q3 and the full fiscal year, to a range of $1.25-1.75 per share in the current quarter (the Zacks consensus was $1.36) and $5.25-6.25 per share for full year 2025 (completely above our analysts’ projections for $5.11 per share. It’s the third-straight earnings beat for Delta, and the Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has elevated +12% in today’s pre-market (-16% year to date).

Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell)-rated food processor Conagra CAG missed expectations on its fiscal Q4 bottom line this morning, to 56 cents per share versus 59 cents expected (and 61 cents per share earned in the year-ago quarter). Revenues of $2.78 billion were short of the $2.84 billion analysts were looking for, with full-year earnings guiding lower than the Zacks consensus. Shares are down -8% on the news, -27% year to date and -29% from this time last year.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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