Hello traders everywhere! Jeremy Lutz here with your mid-day market update for Thursday, the 31st of January.
Uncertainty ahead of tomorrow's monthly jobs report is contributing to choppy trading today. Following yesterday's disappointing fourth quarter GDP report, the Labor Department released a report before the start of trading showing a bigger than expected rebound by weekly jobless claims.
The Labor Department said initial jobless claims rose to 368,000 in the week ending on January 26th, an increase of 38,000 from the previous week's unrevised figure of 330,000. Economists had been expecting jobless claims to climb to 350,000 after hitting a five-year low in the previous week.
Today we'll take a look some individual stocks, shares of Facebook (FB) have come under pressure after the social media giant reported sharply lower fourth quarter earnings. Facebook is currently down by 1.9 percent.
On the other hand, shares of Qualcomm (QCOM) have surged up by 4.7 percent after the chip maker reported better than expected first quarter results and provided upbeat guidance.
Let's take at look at the markets and see what the Trade Triangles are telling us.
Have a great trading day,
Jeremy Lutz
