Market Awaits Existing Home Sales Report

Markets pulled back from Tuesday highs yesterday, and this morning’s pre-market continues that ride lower — all but the small-cap Russell 2000. The Dow is currently -87 points at this hour, the S&P 500 -6, the Nasdaq -45 points and the Russell +7. These indexes remain modestly up over the past month of trading aside from the Russell, which looks as if it may be meeting the other indexes at the break-even point.

We haven’t had Weekly Jobless Claims numbers now for four straight weeks due to the government shutdown. When we last left Initial Jobless Claims, for the week of September 20th, we were down to 218K — a huge slide from the +264K posted two weeks previous. Continuing Claims had remained steadier: 1.93 million for three straight weeks, following three straight months north of 1.94 million (without ever touching 2 million).

Existing Homes Sales from the National Association of Realtors for the month of September are expected out at 10am today. Analysts see a seventh-straight print below 4.1 million seasonally adjusted, annualized units for the month, but off the 3.93 million low posted in July of this year. Supply has been riding under 5 months of late, and the median existing home price rose by +2% in the last report.

Q3 Earnings at a Glance: AAL, TMUS, HON & More

American Airlines AAL followed Southwest’s report from yesterday afternoon in beating expectations in Q3. A loss per share of -$0.17 outpaced estimates by a solid dime, for a +37% positive earnings surprise. Revenues came slightly ahead of the Zacks consensus to $13.69 billion in the quarter. The company also revised Q4 guidance higher. Shares are up +6% ahead of the open, but still -24% year to date.

T-Mobile U.S. TMUS outperformed estimates on both top and bottom lines this morning: earnings of $2.59 per share surpassed the $2.42 in the Zacks consensus (though still down 2 cents per share from the prior-year quarter). Revenues of $21.96 billion bettered the $21.78b billion estimate. Shares are flat on the news, but only +3% year to date.

Honeywell HON, the industrial automation giant destined to be split into three companies in 2026, posted a +10% earnings beat this morning in Q3: $2.82 per share versus expectations for $2.56 (and nicely above the $2.58 per share from a year ago). Guidance was also raised for the full year, and shares are up +4% in pre-market trading.

Union Pacific UNP railroad came out with narrow beats on both top and bottom lines ahead of the opening bell, with earnings of $3.02 per share ahead of projections by 2 cents, while revenues of $6.24 billion outpaced the $6.23 billion in the Zacks consensus. Core freight revenue grew +4% year over year, and Adjusted Operating Ratio grew +180 basis points in the quarter.

Gold and copper miner Freeport-McMoRan FCX put up strong numbers this morning. Earnings of 46 cents per share surged past the 33 cents expected, on $6.97 billion in revenues for the quarter — well ahead of the $6.54 billion anticipated. Strong gold prices clearly assisted results, which were marred somewhat by a “mud rush” delay in Indonesia last month.

What to Expect After the Close

Once the closing bell sounds this afternoon, we look for morning big earnings reports. Chief among these are Intel INTC, Ford F, Newmont Mining NEM and Deckers Outdoor DECK. Of these, Newmont carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and the rest are currently Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

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

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