FYI: After spiking all the way up to 253K last week, breaking a 68-week long streak of readings below 250K and reaching its highest level since September 2017, Initial Jobless Claims fell a bit this week but still remain fairly elevated. Claims came in at 234K versus forecasts of 221K. Just to illustrate how strong claims have been relative to expectations for the last few years, the last two prints represent the first back to back weeks where claims were more than 10K higher than expected since March 2017. Though claims are elevated, they are still low from a historical perspective and don’t forget, just a couple weeks ago claims came in at one of its strongest levels since the late 60s. Unless it turns into a sustained trend, the increase of the last two weeks is not a major concern.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/jobless-claims-come-back-but-are-still-elevated/
