Pre-market futures are still swimming in the red at this hour, even with a large amount of economic data hitting the tape better than expected. Market indexes are moving fairly rapidly, but currently we’re -70 points on the Dow, -28 on the S&P 500 and -145 points on the Nasdaq. Bond yields are ticking higher, notably on the 2-year: +3.66%; the 10-year is approaching +4.19%.
Q2 GDP Revised Up Half a Percentage Point
In a very unusual move this morning, the third and final revision to Q2 Gross Domestic Product (GDP), instead of remaining where the second revision was or moving incrementally higher or lower, blossomed from +3.3% to +3.8% — half a percentage point. It now registers as the strongest quarter of growth since Q3 2023.
The biggest jump came from Consumption: last posted at +1.6%, it now jumps to +2.5%. The Price Index ticked up 10 basis points (bps) on both headline, +2.1%, and core: +2.6%. Shipments remained relatively chilly at -0.3%. We’ll take this as an increased appetite for the U.S. consumer, but not shared among our trading partners.
Weekly Jobless Claims Stay Well-Behaved
Some of the most consistently positive economic numbers for the majority of this year come from Weekly Jobless Claims, and so it remains today. Initial Jobless Claims slid to their lowest level since mid-summer: 218K, down -17K from estimates and -14K from a modestly revised 232K the previous week, and a whopping -64K claims lower than two weeks ago.
Continuing Claims rose from the prior week’s tally — 1.926 million from an upwardly revised 1.928 million the week before that. Continuing jobless claims are reported a week in arrears from new claims. But this is now the third-straight week longer-term jobless claims have been below 1.94 million, where it spent the previous 12 weeks.
Durable Goods Orders Stronger than Expected
August Durable Goods Orders swung to a positive +2.9% from the prior month’s slightly upwardly revised -2.7% and the consensus estimate of -0.5%. Subtracting Transportation orders, this comes back to a more closely aligned-with-estimates +0.4%, down from the prior month’s revised +1.0%. Non-defense, ex-aircraft orders came in at +0.6%, down 20 bps from the downwardly revised +0.8% in the last go-around.
Trade, Retail & Wholesale Numbers Come in Lower
The Advanced U.S. Trade Balance for August came in lower than the prior month, as expected: -$85.5 billion, an improvement from the revised -$102.8 billion. Advanced Retail Inventories, also for August, was unched from an expected +0.2%, matching lows not seen since April. Advanced Wholesale Inventories swung to -0.2% from an original +0.2% reported.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Today
Existing Home Sales for August are expected at 10 am ET today. Forecasts are for 3.96 million seasonally adjusted, annualized units, down from the 4.01 million reported for July. However, New Home Sales vastly outperformed expectations yesterday — 800K from 649K anticipated — so perhaps we’ll see something similarly outsized in this metric, as well.
Warehouse club giant Costco COST reports fiscal Q4 results after today’s closing bell. The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)-rated stock is expected to have grown +12.8% on earnings year over year and +8.1% on revenues. Costco has outperformed earnings expectations in three of its past four quarters.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
Zacks Investment Research
