Stock Market Update

The S&P 500 futures are up 16 points and are trading 0.3% above fair value, the Nasdaq 100 futures are up 159 points and are trading 0.8% above fair value, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures are down 123 points and are trading 0.3% below fair value.

Initial jobless claims for the week ending July 13 increased by 20,000 to 243,000 (Briefing.com consensus 225,000). Continuing jobless claims for the week ending July 6 also increased by 20,000 to 1.867 million, which is the highest level since November 27, 2021.

The key takeaway from the report is that it fits with the view that there is some softening in the labor market, which is a trend that will massage the market's belief that the Fed is likely to cut the target range for the fed funds rate before the end of the year.

The Philadelphia Fed Index for July jumped to 13.9 (Briefing.com consensus 2.9) from 1.3 in June as the indexes for shipments, new orders, and employment turned positive. A number above 0.0 for this series denotes an expansion in manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia Fed region.

The fact that this is survey data, though, as opposed to the hard data of jobless claims, diminishes its influence as a more convincing economic guidepost. The Fed, frankly, will be more interested in what it is seeing in the jobless claims data