Pre-market futures are mixed on a plethora of data this morning. Weekly Jobless Claims and some key Q3 earnings reports from a wide array of industries are having some effect here, as are the pending news items in the next couple weeks, culminating in the General Election on November 5th and a new Fed decision on interest rates on November 7th.

The Dow is -71 points at this hour, balanced somewhat by the +27 points on the S&P 500 and +181 points on the Nasdaq. Bond yields continue to drift higher: now at +4.218% on the 10-year and +4.064% on the 2-year.

Initial Jobless Claims Down to 227K, Longer-Term Up to 1.9B

A surprise on Weekly Jobless Claims numbers comes from expectations of an impact from two hurricanes that struck Florida in the past couple weeks that failed to show up. Headline Initial Jobless Claims came in at 227K, well below the 245K expected and slightly upwardly revised 242K the previous week.

Longer-term Continuing Claims, however, surged to their highest level in three years to 1.897 million. From the second half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, we had been plateauing around 1.8 million longer-term jobless claims, but this looks to be tacking northward over the past three weeks.

American Airlines Posts +130% Earnings Surprise

American Airlines AAL reported Q3 earnings this morning, far outperforming estimates on its bottom line: earnings of 30 cents per share surged past the 13 cents in the Zacks consensus for an earnings beat of +130.77%. This tally was still below the year-ago level of 38 cents per share. This was the third earnings beat for AAL in the past four quarters.

Revenues also outpaced expectations, but not by nearly as much: $13.65 billion bettered the $13.49 billion analysts were projecting. This number slightly outperforms the year-ago revenue print, for an all-time-high in quarterly sales.

Southwest Performs Even Better in Q3

For its part, American rival Southwest Airlines LUV posted a +200% earnings beat, reporting 15 cents per share versus 5 cents in the Zacks consensus. (This is still less than half of the 38 cents per share reported for Q3 of 2023.) Revenues of $6.87 billion amounted to a +1.08% positive surprise.

UPS Mixed in Q3 Report

Delivery and logistics major United Parcel Service UPS also notched better-than-expected earnings this morning — $1.76 per share versus $1.65 expected, for a 6.67% surprise — while basically coming in flat — officially -0.09% — on revenues, to $22.25 billion. Shares are up +9% on this news, though still down overall year to date.