The Labor Department has two key reports out showing somewhat differing trends. The Producer Price Index, ow wholesale inflation, met Weekly Jobless Claims. Jobs are headed the wrong way and producer prices rose on the headline data.
Weekly Jobless Claims rose by 13,000 to 462,000 for the week. Bloomberg had estimates pegged at 443,000 for the week ahead. The prior week had been previously reported as 445,000 and was revised to 449,000. The army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims fell by about 112,000 to 4.399 million.
The decent news will come from wholesale inflation. The deadline Producer Price Index data rose as PPI came in at +0.4%. If you use Core-PPI taking out food and energy that rise was a mere 0.1% for September. Bloomberg was expecting estimates of 0.1% on BOTH headline and core PPI data.
Jobs are headed the wrong way. That hasn’t changed. Inflation is still too low for the FOMC comfort zone, although some members were probably happy to see that 0.4% on the headline data.
JON C. OGG
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