Stock Market Update

The S&P 500 futures are down 15 points and are trading 0.3% below fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are down 90 points and are trading 0.5% below fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 154 points and are trading 0.4% below fair value.

Initial jobless claims for the week ending September 28 increased by 6,000 to 225,000 (Briefing.com consensus 223,000) while continuing jobless claims for the week ending September 21 decreased by 1,000 to 1.826 million.

The key takeaway from the report is that initial jobless claims, a leading indicator, remain well below recession-like levels (the average of initial claims for the last five recessions, excluding the COVID recession, was 458,000), imparting an encouraging understanding that the labor market might be bending but it isn't breaking.

Treasury yields moved up in response. The 10-yr yield moved from 3.80% to 3.82% and the 2-yr yield moved from 3.66% to 3.68%.