Labor Department: Jobless Claims Rise When They Were Expected to Fall

The long and short of the matter is that weekly jobless claims rose by more than the amount that economists were expecting them to fall. Equity futures remain sharply higher after the markets have decided to interpret Ben Bernanke’s comments yesterday and the FOMC minutes as a beacon that the Fed plans to keep rates and QE alive longer than what was feared just a couple of weeks ago.

Another measurement is the four-week average, which rose by 6,000 to 351,750 claims. Continuing claims, what we refer to as the army of the unemployed, rose by 24,000 to 2,977,000 but this is reported with a one-week lag.

Today’s news is unlikely to have much of a market impact, as we have had so much more macroeconomic data, including unemployment and payrolls in recent days.