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It’s deja vu all over again, to quote the great Yogi Berra. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq have once again notched new closing highs this afternoon, and for the third session in a row. That said, the S&P rally does look a bit long in the tooth, as the new record high is +2 points from Monday’s close, +0.04%. The Nasdaq fared better, +76 points, or +0.40%.

The blue-chip Dow slipped again, albeit narrowly: -76 points, -0.17%. The small-cap Russell 2000, which had been enjoying a nice disbursement in the market rally of late, sank -18 points, or -0.75% on the session.
 

JOLTS Numbers Bigger than Expected. What Does This Mean for Rate Cuts?

The October print for the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) out this morning was a surprise to the upside: 7.744 million job openings was notably ahead of the 7.5 million anticipated and the nearly-four-year-low 7.4 million posted the previous month. This accounts for 372K new job openings hitting the labor market in October.

Hires came in lower by -269K to 5.313 million, while layoffs surged to -169K — the biggest number we’ve seen since April of 2023. Resignations were also higher than expected: +228K to 3.326 million for the month. This does suggest some security among employees, and perhaps an historically number of employees are taking their one last paycheck and calling it a career (we see this appear in weekly jobless claims numbers).

In all, we see fairly steady labor force erosion — now at 1.1 openings for each unemployed American. This is a lower margin than what we saw immediately ahead of the Covid pandemic. We also understand the Fed will probably take this metric in stride; its 25 basis-point (bps) rate cut expected on December 18th does not look to be in jeopardy as a result of this report.
 

Q3 Earnings After the Bell: CRM, OKTA

Salesforce.com (CRM - Free Report) shares are up +5% in late trading following its Q3 earnings results hitting the tape, in what appears to be the customer relationship management giant’s first-ever earnings miss: $2.41 per share versus $2.43 expected in the Zacks consensus. Revenues of $9.44 billion narrowly outpaced the $9.43 billion anticipated, +8% year over year.

While revenue guidance for the full year remains in line with prior expectations, Salesforce looks to be uniquely positioned for major growth in the AI space, which of course is the secret sauce behind the 2024 bull market. Even with a blip of an earnings miss, Salesforce has a strong pipeline and looks toward a healthy calendar 2025.

Another AI play, Okta (OKTA - Free Report) , has also reported Q3 results after today’s close, and shares are up +16% on the news. Earnings of 67 cents per share outperformed estimates by a solid dime on the bottom line, while revenues of $665 million in the quarter rocketed ahead of the $649.5 million expected. Guidance for next quarter was increased, as well. Okta provides cloud-based identity services, and Okta AI is considered a mix of machine learning and GenAI algorithms.

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