The U.S. Labor Department is out with its final report ahead of Friday’s key Employment Situation report. Weekly jobless claims rose handily and well above expectations. Last week’s figure rose for the third consecutive week and rose by 28,000 to 385,000. That is now the highest reading since the end of last November, and we would note that Dow Jones was calling for a mere 356,000 and Bloomberg was expecting only 350,000 in the report. Last week’s preliminary figure was kept static at 357,000.

Today’s report is just another weaker point ahead of the key payrolls and unemployment report for March due on Friday morning. The unemployment rate is expected to be flat at 7.7%, but we would expect that unofficial estimates are coming down for the payrolls as jobs numbers have been less robust throughout this week.

Before the weekly claims we saw that the Challenger job-cut report was 49,255 layoff intentions in March, versus 55,356 in February. That is not a seasonally adjusted number.

S&P 500 futures are still up about 4.50, and DJIA futures are still up about 17 points. Both have come off higher gains on the jobs data.

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