Stocks Mixed As Initial Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Increase

Initial Jobless Claims Increase To 778,000

Today, traders will have to digest many economic reports which were shifted to Wednesday due to Thanksgiving holiday.

The U.S. has just released Initial Jobless Claims And Continuing Jobless Claims reports. Initial Jobless Claims report indicated that 778,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits in a week compared to analyst consensus of 730,000.

Meanwhile, Continuing Jobless Claims declined to 6.1 million while analysts expected that they would decrease to 6 million.

Durable Goods Orders increased by 1.3% month-over-month in October compared to analyst consensus which called for growth of 0.9%.

S&P 500 futures are swinging between gains and losses in premarket trading after the release of these economic reports. This is not surprising as the Initial Jobless Claims report showed that the second wave of the virus has started to put additional pressure on the job market. Initial Jobless Claims increased for a second week in a row, and this trend is disturbing.

Housing Market Is Expected To Remain Strong

Later, traders will have a chance to evaluate the latest data on Personal Income and Personal Spending.

Analysts expect that Personal Income remained unchanged in October while Personal Spending increased by 0.4% month-over-month.

New Home Sales are expected to grow by 1.5% month-over-month after declining by 3.5% in September.

It will be interesting to see whether the surge in the number of new coronavirus cases put significant pressure on Consumer Sentiment. The final reading of Michigan Consumer Sentiment for November is expected to show that Consumer Sentiment declined from 81.8 to 77.

Oil Moves Higher Despite Rising Inventories

Oil managed to get above the $45 level and continues its upside move despite rising inventories. The recent API Crude Oil Stock Change report indicated that inventories increased by 3.8 million while analysts expected that they would decline by about 0.3 million.

Traders remain focused on positive vaccine news and expect that the recovery of oil demand will be robust in 2021. In addition, the market believes that OPEC+ will extend current production cuts for the first quarter of the next year.

Interestingly, many oil-related stocks are under pressure in premarket trading. Most likely, some traders have decided to take profits after the massive rally in November.

For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar.