The U.S. Labor Department has some good news, particularly in light of the Commerce Department revising first-quarter GDP to -1.0%. Weekly jobless claims fell by 27,000, down to 300,000, in the past week. Dow Jones was calling for claims to be 319,000 and Bloomberg was calling for 317,000.
No special factors played a role in higher or lower figures in this latest report, according to the Labor Department’s statement. That being said, this was going into the three-day Memorial Day weekend.
The four-week average also slid lower by 11,250 to a post-recovery low of 311,500.
Another sidebar reading is the army of the unemployed via the continuing jobless claims. This has a one-week lag, but it fell 17,000 to 2.631 million. This was the lowest continuing claims reading since late in 2007.
The market is still trying to find a solid footing. The S&P futures were up more than two points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up more than 20 points after the news. Most investors and traders are dusting off the negative GDP report and are taking a look at current data to see if it will lead to another positive trend in unemployment and payrolls due in just over a week.
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