The U.S. Labor Department reported rising claims for unemployment on Thursday, leading investors to expect the Fed might soon cut interest rates to head off this trend and help maintain full employment. S&P 500 stocks reacted positively to the news, with both the index and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEMKT: VOO) that tracks it to rise.
One day later, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a completely opposite trend of seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls rising by 177,000 jobs in April. That’s less jobs growth than was seen in March, but much more than the 133,000 jobs economists were forecasting.
Long story short, the jobs market now seems quite a bit healthier than we thought it was just 24 hours ago. And the result of this good news?
Just like yesterday’s bad news, it’s driving stock markets higher. The S&P 500 opened up 1% this morning, and the S&P 500 ETF is up 1.1%.
Earnings
Friday’s are generally slow days for earnings reports, but “slow” is a relative term in the middle of earnings season. More than four dozen companies have reported earnings already today.
Winners today include insurer Cigna (NYSE: CI), chemicals company DuPont (NYSE: DD), and oil majors Chevron (NYSE: CVX), and Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), all S&P 500 components and all reporting earnings beats.
Losers include utility company AES Corp (NYSE: AES) and asset management companies Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO) and Franklin Resources (NYSE: BEN), all with earnings misses.
Analyst Calls
Wall Street is largely biding its time before making big bets this earnings season, waiting to see how things shake out. Oppenheimer did submit an upgrade today, however, hiking Autozone (NYSE: AZO) to outperform on the theory that auto parts retailers will be “attractive safe havens amid ongoing macro turmoil.”
Conversely, Rosenblatt and Jefferies both downgraded Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) stock after earnings, to neutral and to underperform, respectively. Jefferies observed that “product [gross margin] is already under pressure,” and said “we believe tariff impact will expand over time.”
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