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Briefing.com Summary:
*There is little conviction in the equity futures market ahead of today's open.
*The stock market will close early at 1:00 p.m. ET, and the Treasury market will close early at 2:00 p.m. ET.
*The weekly jobless claims report continued to reflect a low firing-low hiring environment.
The stock market left an early Christmas present for investors yesterday when the S&P 500 established yet another record closing high. This morning, it is picking up the gift wrap and is not as focused on the business at hand, not that anyone can blame it.
There is limited news flow on this Christmas Eve morning to go along with the limited engagement of market participants, who have other holiday pursuits in mind. Today, however, starts the Santa Claus rally period (the last five trading days of the year and the first two trading days of the new year), which is known typically to have a positive bias.
Currently, the S&P 500 futures are up one point and are trading in line with fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 10 points and are trading in line with fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down seven points and are trading in line with fair value.
There is a $49 billion 7-yr note auction that will keep the bond market awake after this morning's initial jobless claims report. Results from that auction will be released at 11:30 a.m. ET.
Treasury yields adhered to tight overnight trading ranges, and that continues to be the case after a familiar-looking jobless claims report. The 2-yr note yield is unchanged at 3.53%, and the 10-yr note yield is down one basis point to 4.16%.
Initial jobless claims for the week ending December 20 decreased by 10,000 to 214,000 (Briefing.com consensus: 226,000), while continuing jobless claims for the week ending December 13 increased by 38,000 to 1.923 million.
The key takeaway from the report is the redundancy of the messaging that low initial claims and high continuing claims connote a low firing-low hiring environment that is a speedbump for growth prospects.
The housing market, for its part, continues to hit a mortgage rate roadblock. The MBA's Mortgage Applications Index was down 5.0% week-over-week, with refinancing applications down 5.6% and purchase applications down 3.7%.
These reports round out the week's economic reporting and have meshed today with corporate headlines that include news of insider purchases at Nike (NKE), a Reuters report that NVIDIA (NVDA) is backing away from a test to see if it can produce chips using Intel's (INTC) 18A process, and Sanofi (SNY) acquiring Dynavax (DVAX) for $2.2 billion, or $15.50 per share, in cash.
The stock market will close early at 1:00 p.m. ET, and the Treasury market will close early at 2:00 p.m. ET. Both markets will be closed Thursday for Christmas Day and will reopen Friday for a full day of trading.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
