The Labor Department is out with its latest round of weekly jobless claims. There was a known seasonality and weather impact that could have played a part in the last week of the year. The tally for the last week came to a rise of 18,000 to 409,000 after the week prior report was revised to 391,000 from that initial 388,000 that surprised everyone. Bloomberg had estimates of 412,000 for the week.
The four week average came down by 3,500 to 410,750. Another measurement to watch is the army of the unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims. That figurehas a week lag and it fell by 47,000 to 4.103 million from a revised higher figure of 4.15 million.
After yesterday’s much better ADP and TrimTabs data, the bias for non-Farm Payrolls and unemployment due Friday has improved.
The bias is still for a slightly better reading on the jobs front for Friday’s data.
JON C. OGG
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