Initial jobless claims fell 22,000 to 187,000 for the week ended July 18, the lowest reading since September 1969 and well below the 212,000 consensus. Challenger corroborates: June layoff announcements were the fewest since December. But the calm is not universal. Tech has announced 139,156 cuts this year, up 83%, with AI the leading stated reason for four straight months. And hiring is stuck. The hires rate sits near 2013 lows, the quits rate near decade lows, and June payrolls grew just 57,000. The result: 1.9 million long-term unemployed, up 286,000 over the year and 27.3% of all unemployed, a share rarely seen outside recessions.
CCM read: Fewer borrowers are losing jobs, but those who do are staying unemployed longer, and longer spells are what turn delinquencies into charge-offs. Record-low claims support near-term card and auto ABS performance, but the 27% long-term share means each displaced borrower does more credit damage, increasingly among prime tech workers. Watch duration, not the weekly print.
Synchrony, Capital One, and Amex closed out card earnings season, and last week's question got answered: credit improved down the credit spectrum too. Synchrony, the closest read on the marginal borrower, printed a 5.43% net charge-off rate against its own 5.5% to 6% origination target, performance running ahead of its underwriting assumptions. Capital One's domestic card charge-offs dropped 54 bps to 4.71%, and the quarter included a $662M reserve release. Amex held steady at 2.0% with its own release. Add last week's four banks and it's seven issuers, zero deterioration, reserves flat to releasing across the board.
CCM read: These books were originated into the 2023-24 tightening cycle, which card lending standards show has since gone neutral, so today's losses say more about the credit screen than the borrower. A reserve release is a bet that losses have peaked, which is a bet that the labor market holds. Seven issuers made that bet at once this quarter. A low jobless-claims print reads as reassurance, but a benign level says nothing about how fast it could turn, and all seven releases ride on that.
Click any row to open the CCM Issuance table. SEC publicly registered transactions only — 144A and private placements excluded.
| Issuer / Series | Asset class | PSR | Close | Size ($MM) | WAL | WA FICO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Credit Auto Lease Trust 2026-BUpdated | Auto Lease | Jul 27 | 1,451.3 | 2.03 | 763 | |
| Nissan Auto Lease Trust 2026-BUpdated | Auto Lease | Jul 29 | 1,289.7 | 2.22 | 760 | |
| Bridgecrest Lending Auto Securitization Trust 2026-3Updated | Auto Loan | Jul 30 | 725.0 | 1.24 | 573 | |
| CarMax Auto Owner Trust 2026-3Closed | Auto Loan | Jul 22 | 1,350.0 | 1.17 | 765 | |
| Toyota Auto Receivables Owners Trust 2026-CClosed | Auto Loan | Jul 21 | 1,900.0 | 2.47 | 771 | |
| World Omni Select Auto Trust 2026-AUpdated | Auto Loan | Jul 29 | 615.2 | 1.18 | 647 |
A few signals from this week's loan-level tape — each links to the exact view on CCM so you can reproduce it. Explore the full data ›
AmeriCredit — 30+ DPD rose 230bp YoY (1.4σ).
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