Weekly Jobless Claims Remains Favorable on Headline Reports

More decent news came out of the Labor Department this Thursday as the weekly jobless claims totaled 361,000 for the past week. The only problem is that we already saw the nonfarm payrolls gains last Friday, and that made today’s number one that would have had to be significantly lower in order for it to add much oomph. Bloomberg had a consensus estimate from economists at 367,000, and the prior week’s report was revised up to 367,000 from 365,000.

Two more data sets were out from the Labor Department: The four-week average rose by 2,250 to 368,250 for the week. And the army of unemployed measured by the continuing claims (reported with a one-week lag) showed a sharp gain of 53,000, up to 3,332,000.

Today’s news is good on the headline data but the reality is that the “jobs boost to the market” came last Friday when payrolls grew much more than what the market economists were calling for.

JON C. OGG