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Ahead of the opening bell this Thursday morning, Initial Jobless Claims came in at 222K for last week, slightly above estimates but certainly within range that demonstrates a continued healthy labor market. The previous week’s print of 216K was ratcheted up just slightly on revision. Since the first of March, we’ve not seen new claims go higher than 225K nor lower than 215K.
Continuing Claims performed even better in today’s release: 1.841 million longer-term jobless claims was nicely lower than the downwardly revised 1.878 million the prior week. In recent weeks, we’d been coming right up to 1.9 million longer-term claims before backing up the following week. These days, we’re not even coming near 1.9 million. More good news for employment.
Durable Goods Orders Strong in March
Also ahead of today’s open is the latest Durable Goods Orders report for last month. Headline came in at an unexpectedly strong +9.2%, more than 4 1/2 times the +1.6% anticipated, the best read since July of last year, and another orbit entirely from the prior month’s +0.6%. Perhaps we’re seeing some “pull-forward” ahead of expected tariff activity?
If so, we think we’ve found where: ex-Transportation, this lofty durable goods headline falls all the way to 0.0%, below the +0.3% analysts were looking for. We haven’t seen this metric this low since the start of 2024. Non-Defense, ex-aircraft — a proxy for “normal” enterprise spending — was in-line with expectations at +0.1%. Shipments, meanwhile, outperformed expectations to +0.3%.
Q1 Earnings Roundup: PEP, PG, AAL & More
PepsiCo (PEP) posted mixed results in its Q1 earnings report out ahead of today’s open: earnings of $1.48 per share missed the Zacks consensus by 2 cents, on revenues of $17.92 billion, which came in ahead of estimates by +0.94%. Shares are down slightly in early trading, and still outperforming the S&P 500 year to date: -6.4% versus -8.6%.
Procter & Gamble (PG) met estimates on its bottom line with earnings of $1.54 per share (2 cents better than what was reported in the year-ago quarter), while revenues of $19.78 billion missed expectations by -2.75%, and lower than the $20.2 billion reported as year ago. Shares had been flat year to date, but are down -1.1% at this hour.
American Airlines (AAL) outperformed bottom-line estimates by a solid dime: from an expected loss of -$0.69 per share to -$0.59 reported. This is the fourth-straight earnings beat for the airline. Revenues were slightly lower than projected to $12.52 billion in the quarter, and shares are down another -1%, adding to the deep -46% losses year to date.