Markets Eye Jobless Claims and Fed Speakers on Quiet Thursday

If you're watching the markets today, grab a coffee — it's a pretty slow day on the calendar. The big story right now is that traders are recovering from yesterday's dip after President Trump moved to cool tensions with Iran, which gave risk assets a bit of a bounce. From here, most market participants are expected to consolidate and wait for Tuesday's US CPI inflation report before making any bold moves.

Over in Europe, the ECB released its meeting accounts, but don't get too excited — this report is generally considered a non-event because the information is already old news by the time it hits the wire. Think of it like getting a weather report for last week.

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The main data point in the American session is the weekly US Jobless Claims figures. Initial Claims are forecast to come in at 217,000, barely budging from the prior week's 215,000 reading. Continuing Claims are expected to hold steady at around 1,814,000. Unless these numbers swing wildly in either direction, they're unlikely to shake up markets much. The broader labor market has actually been improving — the unemployment rate dropped to 4.2% in June, down from a peak of 4.5% back in November 2025. With jobs holding up reasonably well, the Federal Reserve has pivoted its attention back toward inflation as its primary concern right now.

On the central bank speaker front, there's actually quite a bit of chatter scheduled throughout the day. Fed's Williams speaks at 9:00 AM ET, followed by SNB's Martin at noon, the notably hawkish Fed's Logan at 1:30 PM ET, and the Bank of England's Breeden wrapping things up at 3:30 PM ET. Logan, in particular, is worth keeping an ear on given her hawkish reputation — any strong comments on inflation or rate policy could nudge markets heading into the weekend.

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