Markets Eye Jobless Claims Data

Pre-market trading resumes April’s winning ways, climbing out of a shallow -0.60% hole from Tuesday’s session. An extended ceasefire in Iran helps soothe investors’ nerves, and market participants are looking past testimony of nominated Fed Chair Kevin Warsh on Capitol Hill yesterday. The Dow is +303 points at this hour, +0.61%, the S&P 500 +44 points, +0.63%, the Nasdaq +214, +0.80%, and the small-cap Russell 2000 +23, +0.85%.

Spot oil prices are up a bit, as the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked until further notice, but Q1 earnings season has performed about as well as reasonably expected. We see the results in the equities market with the Nasdaq leading once again — reviving the strong “AI trade” which advanced much of the stock market in 2025. 

As far as the new Fed Chair goes, Warsh did not directly pledge allegiance to rate cuts. But until issues with current Fed Chair Jerome Powell are resolved — specifically Senator Thom Tillis’ (R-NC) insistence that the Department of Justice drop the probe into Powell’s handling of development funds — we expect to continue onward with Powell as Fed Chair, perhaps beyond next week’s FOMC meeting.

Q1 Earnings Results Ahead of the Bell: BA, GEV, CME

Boeing BA posted a big improvement on its bottom line in Q1 results this morning. Negative earnings per share of -$0.20 is much better than the -$0.95 in the Zacks consensus, on revenues of $22.22 billion in the quarter, +3.53% better than expectations and the $19.5 billion reported in the year-ago quarter. Commercial jet deliveries improved, and shares are up +4.7% in pre-market trading. 

GE Vernova GEV — the equipment manufacturing and services firm spun-off from GE two years ago — posted strong numbers in its Q1 report this morning. Earnings of $1.98 per share outpaced the $1.84 anticipated, on $9.34 billion in revenues which narrowly outperformed expectations and a big improvement from $8.03 billion reported a year ago. Shares are up another +7% this morning, adding to the +51% gains year to date. 

Chicago-based CME Group CME, on the other hand, missed on Q1 earnings by a penny to $3.36 per share this morning. Revenues of $1.88 billion were -1.78% lower than estimated, but up from $1.64 billion reported in the year-ago quarter. Shares are down -1.5% on the news, and still narrowly positive year to date. 

What to Expect from the Market Today

We have no major economic reports either before or after today’s normal trading session, as we’re a week out from the Fed’s next interest rate decision (and may be Powell’s final meeting in his three-term tenure, but not definitely) and a day away from Weekly Jobless Claims. After the close today, Tesla TSLA, IBM IBM, Texas Instruments TXN, Southwest Airlines LUV and ServiceNow NOW report quarterly earnings results.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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