Stock Market Update

The S&P 500 futures are down three points and are trading 0.1% below fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are down 43 points and are trading 0.3% below fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are up 47 points and are trading 0.1% above fair value.

Initial jobless claims for the week ending November 23 decreased by 2,000 to 213,000 (Briefing.com consensus 217,000). Continuing jobless claims for the week ending November 16 increased by 9,000 to 1.907 million.

The key takeaway from the report is the much the same: employers are reluctant to let employees go, but for employees let go it is becoming more challenging to find a new job.

Durable goods orders increased 0.2% month-over-month in October (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) following an upwardly revised 0.4% decline (from -0.8%). Excluding transportation, durable goods orders increased 0.1% month-over-month following an unrevised 0.4% increase in September.

The key takeaway from the report is that it showed some softness in business spending in October, evidenced by a 0.2% decline in new orders for nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft -- a proxy for business spending.

The second estimate for Q3 GDP was 2.8% (Briefing.com consensus 2.8%), unchanged from the advance estimate. The second estimate for the GDP Deflator was 1.9% (Briefing.com consensus 1.8%), up slightly from the advance estimate of 1.8%.

The key takeaway from the report is that there was a modest downward revision to personal consumption expenditures, yet that did not alter the fact that personal spending was quite healthy in the third quarter.

The Adv. International Trade in Goods deficit narrowed to $99.1 billion in October versus a downwardly revised $108.7 billion (from $108.2 billion) in September. Advance Retail Inventories increased 0.1% following a downwardly revised 0.6% increase (from 0.8%) in September and Advance Wholesale Inventories jumped 0.2% in October following a downwardly revised 0.2% decline (from -0.1%0 in September.

The key takeaway from the report is that there was a notable month-over-month decline for both exports of goods (-$5.6 billion) and imports of goods (-$15.2 billion) that was likely adversely impacted by the East Coast port strike.