Thursday, April sixteenth, 2026
Pre-market futures are up once more this morning, serving to a powerful week of buying and selling get even stronger. Hope springs everlasting relating to the warfare in Iran, with buyers presently betting on a benign and near-term consequence. The Dow is +88 factors, +0.18%, the S&P 500 is +9 factors, +0.13%, the Nasdaq +52, +0.20%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 +1 level, +0.05%. The S&P and Nasdaq closed at new all-time highs yesterday.
Jobless Claims Stay Traditionally Tame: +207K, 1.82M
Preliminary Jobless Claims as soon as once more got here in decrease than anticipated for final week: +207K. This follows a downwardly revised +218K the earlier week, and is now again all the way down to jobless claims ranges not seen since January of 2024. Pre-Covid, we had been hitting 50-year lows, however post-Covid, that is nearly as little as we’ve gotten.
Persevering with Claims bumped up barely to a still-diminutive 1.818 million, however this was off a multi-year low (once more, January 2024) tally of 1.787 million, revised decrease month over month. Weekly Jobless Claims have constantly represented the healthiest figures on the home labor market since vacation season 2025.
One caveat to this knowledge set could be that company layoffs in 2026 up to now haven’t been insignificant. Meta Platforms META let go almost -16K workers simply final month, Citigroup C is winding down -20K of its workforce, Mastercard MA -1400, and several other different firms decreasing payrolls by roughly -1000 simply for the reason that begin of the yr. Maybe beneficiant severance pay has muted the jobless claims up to now, however general it seems like a invoice that’s about to come back due.
Philly Fed Improves in April
Following yesterday’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey, which confirmed progress within the state of New York for April, this morning Philly Fed tracks the identical factor for the sixth-biggest metropolis within the U.S.: +26.7 on headline is the strongest we’ve seen in almost a yr and a half, greater than double the +12 anticipated. That is the fourth month in a row of optimistic Philly Fed outcomes, increased sequentially in every of the months, after six of the earlier eight months with damaging Philly Fed numbers.
Q1 Earnings at a Look
PepsiCo PEP beat estimates on each high and backside traces this morning, with Q1 earnings coming in at $1.61 per share outpacing the $1.55 within the Zacks consensus. Reducing the costs of snack meals helped revenues achieve within the quarter. Shares are up +1% on the information, including to the +7.9% Pepsi has gained, yr thus far. For extra on PEP’s earnings, click on right here.
Elsewhere, Abbott Labs ABT surpassed earnings estimates by a penny to $1.15 per share. The corporate continues to be working to digest Precise Sciences, and disillusioned buyers have offered the inventory -4% this morning. Taiwan Semiconductor TSM beat and raised in its Q1, topping on earnings by +5.4% on income progress of +35% yr over yr. The Vacationers TRV crushed earnings estimates by +10.5% to $7.71 per share and upped its dividend, however shares are down at this hour.
After immediately’s shut, Netflix NFLX reviews Q1 earnings outcomes. Analysts count on year-over-year progress of +22.73% on earnings and +15.4% on revenues. The streaming big has crushed on earnings in three of the previous 4 quarters, however the inventory has underperformed for a lot of the previous yr, though we’re effectively up from lows for the yr.
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