Jobless Claims Steady, PEP Q2 Earnings: Pre-Markets Higher
Thursday, July 9th, 2026
Pre-market futures are up ahead of the opening bell this morning, following a mixed close Wednesday — the Dow lost -1.09% while the Nasdaq grew +0.20%, with the S&P 500 splitting the difference: -0.28%. At this hour, following the release of new Weekly Jobless Claims numbers, we’re up +74 points on the Dow, +319 on the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 +18. The bond yield between two-year and 10-year t-bills is widening a bit, +4.58% on 10s and +4.19% on 2s.
Jobless Claims: Steady as She Goes
Glancing at this morning’s Weekly Jobless Claims figures, you might think you’re still looking at last week’s results. Initial Claims came in at +215K, right where they were a week ago (which has now revised up slightly to +217K). It’s looking more and more like that burst to +230K in the first week of June was an outlier; we’ve been averaging roughly +215K new claims throughout 2026 thus far.
Continuing Claims also came in precisely where last week’s original print did: +1.814 million. The prior read comes down a bit to +1.806 million. While this does register as the fourth-straight longer-term jobless claims report at or above 1.8 million, claims have been muted and steady. In fact, after spending much of 2025 at or above +1.9 million longer-term claims, we’ve been beneath it every week in 2026 so far.
PepsiCo Posts Modest Q2 Beats
Ahead of today’s open, PepsiCoPEP opens the spigot a tad on Q2 earnings season. The global beverage and food giant — aside from Pepsi products, the corporation also owns Doritos, Gatorade and several other brands — beat the Zacks estimate on earnings by a penny to $2.20 per share. Revenues of $24.18 billion came in +1.32% ahead of consensus.
Shares are down on the news, with softer-than-expected sales in North America. Tightening consumer budgets and inflation in the domestic economy were to blame. Globally, the company grew +3% on food and +2% on beverages. PepsiCo has kept its full-year guidance steady on both earnings and sales. For more on PEP’s earnings, click here.
What to Expect from the Stock Market Today
After this morning’s opening bell, Existing Home Sales for June come out. Expectations are for 4.20 million seasonally adjusted, annualized units, which would be the third-straight month higher from March’s seven-month lows. A month ago, the Midwest led with existing home sales up +6.4%, followed by +3.2% in the South. The Northeast grew a quieter +2.2% and the West — long the leader in existing home sales figures — only gained +0.75% year over year in the May report.
We’ll also hear speeches from Fed Presidents John Williams (New York) and Lorie Logan (Dallas) later this morning. Otherwise, we’re done with economic reportage for the trading week, including tomorrow. Friday morning, Delta Air LinesDAL continues the slow trickle of the Q2 earnings. Zacks expects -28.57% earnings growth year over year, while gaining +6.68% in revenues. The major airline is riding a six-quarter earnings beat streak, with the trailing four months averaging +5.4%.
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