The U.S. Department of Labor is out with its weekly jobless claims report from last week, showing a positive trend. Jobless claims fell to 312,000 in the past week. Bloomberg was calling for a consensus of 312,000 from its pool of economists, and last week’s reading was revised up by only 1,000 to 318,000 from 317,000.

Another good sign for a trend is that the four-week average fell by 3,750 to 311,750.

Continuing claims come with a one week lag, but this was also a move in the right direction. The army of the unemployed fell by 54,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2.56 million.

No special factors were cited in the report that would create a big upward or downward view.

Thursday’s report is not likely to act as a major catalyst for stocks or bonds. Still, the report shouldn’t create any new reasons to hit the panic button either. S&P futures were up 0.75 points and DJIA futures were up less than 10 points shortly after the jobless claims report.

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