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All good things come to an end. So it is with this latest run of all-time highs hit during the last week or so of trading: all major indexes closed out today’s session in the red. The Dow slid -248 points, -0.55%, while the S&P 500 — fresh off its 56th record closing high this year so far — slipped -11 points, -0.19%. The Nasdaq dropped -34 points on the day, -0.18%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 shed -25 points, -1.06%.

It looks to be a bit of a wait-and-see thing with tomorrow’s all-important jobs numbers from the U.S. government. If we go north of the expected 214K jobs filled in November, it may signal a stronger-than-expected economy, which may put the Fed’s future rate cuts in jeopardy. If this number comes in down near the paltry +12K reported a month ago, then we may need to find something other than October’s hurricane disruptions to explain it.
 

Q3 Earnings Wrap-Up After the Bell: LULU, ULTA and More

Lululemon Athletica (LULU - Free Report) shares are up +9.5% in the after-market on a strong beat-and-raise Q3 reported following today’s close. Earnings of $2.87 per share were well beyond the $2.69 in the Zacks consensus and the $2.53 per share reported in the year-ago quarter. Revenues grew +9% year over year to $2.4 billion in the quarter, north of the $2.35 billion analysts were expecting. Comps were higher, driven by +25% growth in the International segment.

Guidance for next quarter pulled the high range higher for both earnings and quarterly sales, while full-year guidance blossomed nicely: to a range of $14.08-14.16 per share from a previous expectation of $13.93, on revenues between $10.452-10.487 billion — notably above the $10.42 billion originally predicted. Shares had been wallowing -30% year to date.

Ulta Beauty (ULTA - Free Report) also put up a strong showing in its Q3 report this afternoon, earning $5.14 per share versus the Zacks consensus $4.47, on $2.53 billion in revenues which took out the $2.49 billion estimate and swung to positive growth year over year. Earnings guidance rose nicely for Q4, to a range of $23.20-23.75 per share from earlier expectations of $23.07 per share. Ulta shares had also been under water year to date, but are up more than +10% in late trading.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprises (HPE - Free Report) outperformed its fiscal Q4 earnings estimate by 3 cents to 58 cents per share after today’s close, on $8.46 billion in quarterly sales which easily trounced expectations of $8.23 billion, and resulted in year-over-year growth of +15%. The company looks for synergies with its recent acquisition of Juniper Networks, and it announced a new cash dividend of 13 cents per share. HPE stock is up +1.8% in trading after hours.
 

What to Expect from Friday’s Stock Market

Of course, the biggest economic report of the week is still to come: non-farm payrolls from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The trailing 4-month average in new jobs filled is a fairly weak 114K — about the number needed just to refill all the positions vacated by retiring Baby Boomers and some older Gen-X folk. Compare that to the previous 4 months, where the average was 188K new jobs — and an average of 279 per month a year ago.

So it’s clear the labor market is cooling. Tomorrow should give us a clearer picture of by how much. We’ll also take a close look at wage growth, which is also expected to cool somewhat month over month to +0.3%.

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