Solid Reports This Morning for Jobless Claims & Earnings

Thursday, February 19th, 2026

We have a decent amount of grist for the stock market mill this morning, with key earnings reports joining key economic news. Pre-market indexes have slid into the red from early-morning highs, but are leveling off currently: the Dow is -133 points, -0.27%, the S&P 500 -19, -0.28%, the Nasdaq -92, -0.37% and the small-cap Russell 2000 -10, -0.39%.
 

Jobless Claims Remain Historically Low

Thursday morning Weekly Jobless Claims are out again ahead of today’s open, with an Initial Jobless Claims headline of 206K below the 223K expected and the slightly upwardly revised 229K from the previous week. Today’s headline is the lowest tally since early January, which was the most recent time we submerged below 200K new jobless claims.

Continuing Claims ratcheted up slightly from the prior week (Continuing Claims are reported a week in arrears from Initial Claims) to 1.869 million — still an historically low number, but higher than the downwardly revised 1.852 million the previous week. Keep in mind we were in a range between 1.90-1.98 million longer-term jobless claims for most of 2025.
 

U.S. Trade Deficit Deepens Unexpectedly

Also this morning, the U.S. Trade Deficit was updated. This headline sank to -$70.3 billion, much lower than the -$56.0 billion analysts were looking for — though still roughly half of where we were back in March of last year, directly ahead of tariff initiatives. The near-term low on the deficit was -$28.75 billion back in October, which was the slimmest headline in 16 years.

Relatedly, Retail Inventories came in flat for December , down from the +0.1% analysts were expecting but up from the -0.5% reported for the prior months. Wholesale Inventories, meanwhile, reached expectations of +0.2%, which was where we were in the November print, as well. Keep in mind, these figures are from far enough ago we cannot disregard holiday-season distortions.
 

Philly Fed Posts Two-Straight Up-Months

Meanwhile, the regional manufacturing survey in and around Philadelphia, better known as Philly Fed, reached 16.3 for the month of February. This is roughly double expectations and the highest we’d seen since September of last year. Over the past six months, we’ve seen three in positive territory and three negative, with the first back-to-back Philly Fed gains since March of 2025.
 

Earnings Update, at a Glance: Walmart, Deere & Etsy

Walmart WMT lost its title of America’s Top Retailer this morning (to Amazon.com) but still posted mild beats on top and bottom lines in its Q4 report this morning. Earnings of 74 cents beat by a solid penny, while revenues of $190.66 billion were up year over year and beat expectations by +0.32%. 

The company, reporting for the first time under CEO John Furner, did express concerns about tariff costs going forward, but shares are up +1% in early trading, adding to the +13.7% gains year to date. For more on WMT’s earnings, click here.

John Deere & Co. DE posted strong surprises in its fiscal Q1 report this morning, with earnings of $2.42 per share on $8 billion in quarterly revenues outpacing estimates by +26% and +5.2%, respectively. Full-year guidance was also raised for the heavy machinery manufacturer, with its stock moving up another +6% ahead of today’s open, adding to its +27.4% growth year to date. For more on DE’s earnings, click here.

Craft e-commerce staple Etsy ETSY performed well in its Q4 report this morning, beating on earnings by 4 cents to 92 cents per share on revenues of $881.64 million a smidge ahead of expectations. Shares have rocketed up +21.23% in early trading, pushing the stock into positive territory year to date, after having sold off -20.6% so far in 2026. For more on ETSY’s earnings, click here.

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