Initial Claims Beat Expectations

This morning’s initial claims report came in at 787,000. That was better than expectations. To me, the only noticeable feature in the report is that the claims have been very stable for the last few weeks.

The report also showed a drop of 126,000 in continuing claims, taking the total down to 5.07 million. Those receiving benefits from all programs also fell, declining by 420,000 to 19.2 million.

Claims remain well above pre-pandemic levels as a continued surge in Covid-19 cases has caused economic restrictions in states and municipalities across the country.

The stock market continues to climb higher. The S&P 500 has been up as much as 1.5% today. This time, it’s Tech that’s doing the heavy lifting. In yesterday’s market, Tech was the laggard.

On our Buy List, there are new highs today from Broadridge Financial Solutions (BR), HEICO (HEI) and Trex (TREX). A few others are very close.

The internals today are a bit odd. For example, the Dow is trailing the S&P 500 was 60 basis points today. That kind of gap is not unheard of, but it’s pretty wide. The Nasdaq is leading the S&P 500 by about 90 basis points.

Posted by on January 7th, 2021 at 12:04 pm


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