Ever have one of those mornings where you roll out of bed, grab your coffee, and realize the entire market could pivot before most people even finish their first sip? Yeah, tomorrow feels exactly like that.
We’re coming off a week that’s already thrown plenty at us—rate cut speculation cooling off a bit, some wild sector rotation, and tech trying to find its footing again. But Thursday? Thursday is stacked. Fresh economic data, a trio of big Canadian banks, airlines still riding high, chips suddenly roaring back, and three after-hours earnings that could each move their own little corners of the market. In my experience, these are the kinds of days where the real money is made (or lost) in the first two hours.
What Thursday Actually Has in Store
Let me walk you through everything on the radar, sector by sector, number by number. No fluff—just what actually matters when the bell rings.
8:30 AM ET – Weekly Jobless Claims Drop
First thing in the morning, before most of us have even found the right Bloomberg tab, the Labor Department releases initial jobless claims. Consensus sits around 220,000. That’s basically in line with the gentle uptrend we’ve seen the past few weeks.
Here’s the thing nobody says out loud: the market has gotten oddly comfortable with “not great but not terrible” labor data. A print right at 220K probably gets a collective shrug. Beat it by 10K or more and suddenly the “soft landing” crowd gets louder. Miss it by that much and the recession whispers start up again. I’ve traded enough of these releases to know the knee-jerk move usually happens in the first five minutes after Becky Quick reads the number live.
In a world obsessed with every basis point of Fed policy, jobless claims remain one of the last pure “real economy” prints we still get weekly.
The Canadian Bank Hat Trick
While most U.S. traders are still wiping sleep from their eyes, three of the big six Canadian banks report before the open. Yeah, I know—Canadian banks sound about as exciting as unbuttered toast to some people, but hear me out.
These names have been on an absolute tear lately. Bank of Montreal (BMO) is up roughly 3% in the past three months and sitting less than 4% off its late-September peak. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM) just printed a fresh 52-week high this week—then gave a little back, classic profit-taking move. And Toronto-Dominion (TD), probably the one U.S. investors know best, has climbed 13% in three months and also kissed a new high before fading a touch.
- Why care? Canadian banks tend to move together on credit loss provisions and net interest margin guidance.
- If provisions come in lower than feared, the whole group rips higher.
- Any hint of stress in the Canadian consumer (and trust me, housing up there is its own soap opera) and you’ll see red across the board.
Fun personal aside—I lived in Toronto for two years back in the day. Watching these reports always feels like getting a quarterly health check on an entire economy from 30,000 feet.
Airlines Refusing to Cool Off
Someone forgot to tell the airline sector that winter is coming. The S&P airlines industry index is up more than 5% in just three trading days. That’s not a bounce—that’s a statement.
United sits only 6.5% away from its January high. Delta is even closer at 3.6%. Southwest, forever the contrarian play, is within striking distance of its summer peak. Even the laggards—JetBlue and American—are starting to wake up, though they still have plenty of lost ground to reclaim.
Is this revenge travel finally running out of steam or just a classic short-covering rally after everyone declared the group dead six months ago? My money is on the latter, but either way, momentum like this tends to feed itself until it doesn’t.
The Chip Comeback Nobody Saw Coming
Remember two weeks ago when every headline screamed that the semiconductor trade was broken forever? Good times.
Fast forward to now and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) is up nearly 5% in a week. The iShares version (SOXX) is doing even better at 6%+. The real eye-poppers are names like Microchip Technology, Intel, and NXP—each up around 20% in the past week alone.
Yes, Nvidia and Broadcom are the only two big caps actually in the red over that stretch. That tells you everything you need to know—this isn’t AI hype driving the move. This feels more like old-school laggards finally catching a bid while the generals rest. I love when the market does exactly the opposite of what everyone “knows” is going to happen.
After the Bell: Three Very Different Stories
Once 4 PM hits, the action shifts to three companies that couldn’t be more different from each other.
Ulta Beauty – Trading less than 5% off its early October high and quietly up 2.5% since last quarter. Beauty has been one of those stealth strong categories all year. A beat here could light a fire under the whole consumer discretionary space.
SentinelOne – Cybersecurity remains a roller coaster. The stock is down 38% over the past year but has ripped 5% in the last two days alone. Earnings volatility here is off the charts—strap in.
ChargePoint – The EV charging pure-play is down 23% since last report and a brutal 64% year-over-year. At this point it’s less about the numbers and more about whether management can convince anyone the bleeding has a tourniquet.
Look, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that plans survive exactly until the opening bell. One surprise provision number from a Canadian bank, one hot claims print, one airline guidance raise—any single event can rewrite the script.
But that’s exactly why Thursdays like this are my favorite. The market hands you a menu of very specific catalysts. Your job is to figure out which ones actually matter and which ones are just noise.
Me? I’ll be up early, coffee in hand, watching that 8:30 number like it owes me money. Because some days, it kind of does.
See you on the tape.
