High-Freq Data Monitor

Jobless claims miss the consensus and creep up a little, back toward the still-low levels we saw earlier in the year. With twelve more S&P 500 companies reporting, there are only 15 more to go for this earnings season. The weighted surprise factor is an astonishing 15.9%, showing that companies easily cleared an expectational bar that had been dramatically raised by an historic upgrade wave across sectors. The only risk we see here is: what do you do for an encore?

New jobless claims low, and at expectations. Very slight miss in continuing claims. S&P 500 earnings continue to soar, and earnings reports continue to beat big. So far so good.

Jobless claims rise slightly and miss the consensus for the first time in many weeks. They had hit rock bottom, and having bounced off it, remain at levels that have to be seen as extremely low by any standards, and about average for the last four years of generally low numbers. On the other hand, we do note the move in the internals of the Chicago Fed Financial Conditions Index. The composite index is wonderfully low, and has been falling the last three weeks. But the leverage component has been rising sharply for the last couple months, and is now well above the zero line -- indicating vulnerability, even if not outright stress. 

Recite the mantra (because it is true!) -- we're in a productivity-led boom. Despite rising gasoline prices and economic uncertainty, new jobless claims dropped sharply this week. But the real shocker is corporate earnings. While estimates have been getting upgraded at a furious pace, so far this earnings season is the best since the pandemic recovery of 2021, indeed the third best in the entire history of the data. The weighted average surprise factor for the S&P 500, with about half of companies have reported, is an astonishing 22.4%!