Jobless Claims Trump Revised GDP Growth

The weekly jobless claims from the Labor Department took center stage. This is the more current of the readings, with the data being only a few days old. Weekly jobless claims rose by 16,000 to 357,000, and that is the second gain in a row and may be a signal that employment gains are abating already. Dow Jones was looking for a reading of 340,000, and many investors might have been hoping for the drop in claims to continue. Continuing claims, which we call the army of the unemployed (with a one-week lag), fell by 27,000 to 3,050,000.

Today’s revision for GDP from the Commerce Department was supposedly the final revision for the fourth quarter of 2012. This was revised to +0.4% from +0.1%, but the move confirms that the preliminary -0.1% drop was not a trend to the recessionary bias again. Instead it is just very anemic growth. Dow Jones was calling for a 0.5% gain.

S&P futures are up about tw points and DJIA futures are up about 15 points.