Pre-market futures are up again at this hour, adding to a big day Wednesday that saw the Nasdaq up over +500 points and the Dow +600. While the ceasefire in the Middle East tentatively holds for now, Q1 earnings results are setting records, riding the AI trade to new heights. The Dow is presently +127 points, the S&P 500 is +11, the Nasdaq +23 and the small-cap Russell 2000 is +4 points.
The war in Iran has begun to wear on investors’ patience, and they have begun to tune out the day-to-day, which remains precarious. For instance, today Iran continues to review the latest 14-point plan submitted by the U.S. According to President Trump, we “might have a deal” or “we might start bombing.” As always, keep abreast of developments here, especially considering spot oil prices: both WTI and Brent are back under $100/bbl at this hour.
Jobless Claims Remain in “No Hire/No Fire” Range
Weekly Jobless Claims continue their most consistently healthy figures this morning, with Initial Jobless Claims flowing up to +200K (from a slightly upwardly revised +190K for the previous week), but still below the projected +206K for the week. These are levels last seen in the latter half of 2022, when they were drawing comparisons to the late 1960s.
Continuing Claims, reported a week in arrears from new claims, fell to a new near-term low +1.766 million, below the downwardly revised +1.776 million the prior week. We’ve not seen results like these on longer-term unemployment claims since early 2024. For around six months in 2025, we were between +1.90 and +1.975 million long-term claims.
This suggests, perhaps, that the U.S. labor market is in fine shape. However, from the monthly reports we can see we are closer to flat on overall jobs growth, with large tranches of layoffs from some of the biggest companies in America every quarter. Perhaps newly pink-slipped individuals are calling it a career and retiring, perhaps they’re finding ways outside of declaring unemployment (driving for Uber or DoorDash, for instance), but whatever it is, drawing from jobless claims is apparently not the go-to move in aggregate at this time.
Q1 Productivity Slips in Latest Print
Also reported ahead of today’s opening bell is Q1 Productivity — the “secret sauce” of the U.S. economy. Today’s headline of +0.8% is 20 basis points (bps) below expectations, and the lowest print since Q1 of the previous year, which came in at -0.9%. Q4 has been revised lower to +1.6%.
Unit Labor Costs were also down for the quarter: +2.3% (from +2.5% anticipated). This is the lowest we’ve seen since Q3 of 2025, and alleviates some of the pressure from lower productivity: if we’re not producing as many goods, at least we’re paying less for them.
Earnings Results at a Glance: MCD, TRIP & More
We’re past the heaviest section of Q1 earnings season, with six of the “Mag 7” already having reported (NVIDIA is still two weeks from now), but some key results have hit the tape this morning:
McDonald’s (MCD) outpaced estimates for Q1, with earnings of $2.83 per share beating the Zacks consensus by +3.28%, on revenues in the quarter of $6.52 billion, +0.49% from estimates. Yet the “challenging environment” the company sees is dragging stocks from their early-morning gains; shares are down -7% year to date.
TripAdvisor (TRIP) missed estimates on both top and bottom lines this morning, posting a loss of -$0.11 per share for Q1, below the Zacks consensus of -$0.03, with $382.4 million beneath projections by -0.79%. Shares remain flat at this hour, as well, though we see the stock has already sold off -23% year to date.
Planet Fitness (PLNT) outperformed relatively strongly in its Q1 report, with earnings of +$0.74 per share a +17.6% beat over expectations on $337.24 million in revenues, which topped estimates by +12.8%. However, lowered guidance is sending shares down again, -22% at this hour, adding to the stock’s -40% downturn since the start of the year.
Fashionable handbag (Coach and Kate Spade) holding company Tapestry (TPR) posted strong figures in its fiscal Q3 this morning: earnings of $1.66 per share outpaced the $1.33 in the Zacks consensus by +26.7%. Revenues of $1.92 billion were +8.5% ahead of estimates. But the pending tariff hit sent guidance lower, so shares are -4.6% at this hour ahead of the open — though still up double digits year to date.
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