Jobless Claims Rise to 368,000

This morning, the Labor Department reported that weekly jobless claims rose by 38,000 last week to 368,000. That’s the biggest increase since November. Wall Street had been expecting an increase of 20,000, but the claims recent reports have been very positive.

We’re coming off five-year lows, so today’s report should be seen in some broader context. Another possibility is that claims are truly around 360,000 and the earlier reports were just noise. It’s hard to say but we’ll get the big jobs report tomorrow when the government reports the non-farm payrolls and unemployment rate for January.

We also learned that personal income rose by 2.6% last month. That’s a bit distorted because a lot of rich folks pulled in a little extra cash in order to avoid higher taxes this year.

The market is currently up about one point to 1,503. Yay, no volatility.

Posted by on January 31st, 2013 at 9:59 am


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