Jobless Claims Come in Decades Low

Jobless Claims Back to 1960s Lows: 187K, 1.796M

Prior to the Covid pandemic, which pushed jobless claims up to record highs in the first half of 2020, we saw Weekly Jobless Claims reduce to lows not seen since Jimi Hendrix was on the album charts (album charts? ask your parents) in the late 1960s. We’re back there again this morning: Initial Jobless Claims reached 187K for last week, well below the 212K expected and the slightly upwardly revised 209K the previous week.

For Continuing Claims, more of the same: 1.796 million is below the downwardly revised 1.798 million from the prior week, the lowest print since the week of May 30th, which included the Memorial Day holiday. A year ago, we were well above 1.9 million longer-term jobless claims (without ever hitting the psychologically important 2 million jobless claims), but we haven’t touched 1.9 million at all in 2026 so far.

Q2 Earnings Results at a Glance

The world’s largest airline, American Airlines AAL, posted a whopping +400% positive earnings surprise this morning, swinging to a positive earnings result from a year ago to $0.15 per share. Revenues of $16.74 billion also beat estimates, by a decidedly less eye-popping +0.22%, but up big from the $14.39 billion reported in the year-ago quarter. Fuel costs in upcoming quarters is weighing on the share price this morning, however.

T-Mobile U.S. TMUS shares are trading down -5% at this hour, despite reporting a +25.7% earnings beat to $3.13 per share this morning, well ahead of the $2.84 per share posted in the year-ago quarter. Revenues came in at $22.79 billion, a +0.21% improvement from estimates and the $21.13 billion from Q2 2025.

Investment bank Blackstone BX shares are flattish this morning — considered good news in the current trading climate — after surpassing earnings expectations by +14.3% to $1.52 per share. Revenues surprised by a solid +12.7% to $3.8 billion in the quarter. Shares are still down -20% year to date, but it’s nice to see the stock not being further gutted in this morning’s selloff.

Aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin LMT shares are up in today’s pre-market by +5.5%, partly on increased tensions in the Middle East which may push up demand for military operation products and services, and partly on a strong Q2 performance. Earnings of $7.94 per share outpaced estimates by +9.97%, up from the $7.29 per share reported a year ago. Revenues of $20.06 billion beat forecasts by +3.26% this morning.

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

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