The Labor Department is out with the weekly jobless claims ahead of Friday’s report on unemployment and the trend went the wrong way for this week and the week before. The report showed a rise of 10,000 claims to 383,000 and the prior week’s report was revised to 373,000 from 370,000. Dow Jones was only calling for a reading of 370,000 in the last week.
In order to smooth out the data, the 4-week average rose by 3,750 to 374,500 while the continuing jobless claims (reported with a one-week lag) fell by 36,000 to 3,242,000.
Elsewhere, the ADP report showed that the private sector employment in May rose by 133,000 rather than the 150,000 expected. The Challenger jobs report also noted that the May job cuts rose by 67% from a year ago and rose 53% from April to 61,887 likely dominated by Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ).
None of the data are helping to set a positive tone for Friday’s unemployment and jobs data. Bloomberg has a consensus report of 150,000 in nonfarm payrolls and a static unemployment rate of 8.0%. It is also currently expected that the private payrolls are up 164,000.
To show just how well the data was received, stock futures went from positive to negative and the 10-year bond briefly dipped under the 1.60% level again to a record low.
JON C. OGG
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