Weekly Jobless Claims Report Splits Estimates
The U.S. Labor Department is out with its weekly jobless claims report from the prior week. We would note that weekly jobless claims have been a bit skewed because of a delay in California’s claims reporting, but the reports should…
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Bloomberg was calling for a reading of 372,000 and Dow Jones was calling for 365,000 on the weekly claims. In short, this was right in between the two consensus reports. We also saw a revision in the prior week’s report to 392,000 from 388,000 previously reported.
To smooth out the weekly readings, the four-week average came in with a gain of 1,500 to 368,000. The army of unemployed, measured by the continuing claims with a one-week lag, came down by only 2,000 to a new level of 3.254 million.
Yesterday was the FOMC statement, and right now the markets are only reacting to large changes in these weekly reports. That being said, investors are still trying to get their hands around that mysterious drop in unemployment to 7.8% in September from 8.1% in August.
JON C. OGG
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Jon Ogg has been a financial news analyst since 1997. Mr. Ogg set up one of the first audio squawk box services for traders called TTN, which he sold in 2003. He has previously worked as a licensed broker to some of the top U.S. and E.U. financial institutions, managed capital, and has raised private capital at the seed and venture stage. He has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as New York and Chicago, and he now lives in Houston, Texas. Jon received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance at University of Houston in 1992. www.247wallst.com.
