The Leuthold Group chief investment strategist Jim Paulsen, LPL Financial chief market strategist Ryan Detrick and The MarketGauge Group managing director Michele Schneider on today’s markets and the American economy.
U.S. equity futures are pointing to gains ahead of the start of the Thursday Wall Street session.
The major futures indexes suggest an increase of 0.3% at the opening bell.
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The Labor Department is out with its count of new claims for unemployment benefits for last week. Expectations are for 540,000, up slightly from a pandemic low of 553,000 the prior week.
The report comes ahead of Friday’s jobs report for April. Economists expect the data to show employers hired 988,000 workers last month as the economy accelerated out of the pandemic and vaccines rolled out nationwide. The unemployment rate is expected to drop to 5.8%.
US COMPANIES ADDED 742,000 JOBS IN APRIL, ADP SAYS
On Thursday, we’ll also get a look at first-quarter productivity and labor costs. Economists surveyed by Refinitiv anticipate that worker productivity rose at a 4.3% seasonally adjusted annual rate last quarter, a reversal from the 4.2% slide in the fourth quarter of 2020. Unit labor costs are expected to slip 0.8% in the first quarter after jumping 6.0% in 4Q 2020.
A heavy day on the earnings calendar is coming up, with key names like ViacomCBS, Cardinal Health, Wayfair, Moderna and Norwegian Cruise Line reporting ahead of the opening bell.
After the close of trading attention will turn to News Corp., Peloton, AIG, Beyond Meat, Square and Roku to name a few.
Asian shares were mostly higher Thursday on cautious optimism that upcoming company earnings reports will reflect a gradual recovery from the damage of the pandemic.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 jumped 1.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.7% and China’s Shanghai Composite slipped 0.2%.
Major U.S. stock indexes closed mixed after an early technology company rebound faded, tempering the market’s recovery from a sell-off a day earlier.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I:DJI | DOW JONES AVERAGES | 34230.34 | +97.31 | +0.29% |
| SP500 | S&P 500 | 4167.59 | +2.93 | +0.07% |
| I:COMP | NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX | 13582.424821 | -51.08 | -0.37% |
The S&P 500 eked out a 0.1% gain to 4,167.59 after climbing 0.7% in the early going. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 34,230.34, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq slid 0.4% to 13,582.42.
Technology stocks, which led the market’s blockbuster rebound in 2020, fell for the seventh straight day.
General Motors shares rose 4% after the company posted a solid quarterly profit compared to a year earlier, but also affirmed its full-year outlook even as the automaker — like much of its competition — contends with a chip shortage that is impacting production.
FACEBOOK OVERSIGHT BOARD UPHOLDS TRUMP BAN BUT CALLS INDEFINITE SUSPENSION ‘NOT APPROPRIATE’
Facebook shares fell 1% after the company announced its independent oversight board would continue to ban former President Trump from the platform. Trump’s account had been suspended indefinitely after the January 6 insurrection at the capital, where his rhetoric has been blamed for the riots. The board did say that the company must decide if the ban is permanent.
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In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude gained 27 cents to $65.90 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, added 39 cents to $69.35 a barrel.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
