Here come initial jobless claims ...

The latest weekly report on initial jobless claims is set for release at 8:30 am ET.

Expectations are for the report to show claims totaled 270,000 last week, up from the prior week's 255,000 print, which was the lowest in over 40 years.

In a note to clients on Thursday, Steve Englander at Citi noted that this morning's number will be the first "clean" number - i.e. a number not distorted by any skews around the Fourth of July holiday - in a few weeks.

Englander, writing after Wednesday's Federal Reserve decision to keep interest rates unchanged, said that claims will now be more in focus as we approach the Fed's September meeting when it could look to raise interest rates for the first time since July 2006.

Englader said anything under 275,000 today is supportive of a sooner rather than later rate hike; anything above 285,000 would be seen as "soft."

We'll be back with the live numbers when they hit.