The Labor Department is out with two market-moving reports. The weekly Jobless Claims came in at very impressive levels compared to the past and the Producer Price Index looks a bit mixed between the core and headline data.
The weekly claims fell by 13,000 to 348,000 (finally under that 350K mark). This is a drop of 13,000 while economists were actually looking for that figure to tick back up. The prior week was revised to 361,000 from 358,000 previously reported. The army of unemployed, measured by the continuing jobless claims with a one-week lag, fell by 100,000 down to 3.426 million.
Inflation is remaining tame, albeit a tad above estimates. For the month of January, PPI rose by only 0.1% versus an expected rise of 0.4% by Dow Jones consensus estimates. The Core PPI (ex-food and energy) came in at +0.4% versus a Dow Jones estimate of +0.2%. All in all, this may be a wash between the headline data and the core data. The caveat, this was the highest reading in 6 months on the core figures.
JON C. OGG
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