FYI: Today’s report on initial jobless claims was just plain bad. While economists were expecting claims to come in at a level of 270K, the actual reading was 24K higher at 294K. This was the highest weekly reading in claims in over a year (February 2015) and also the biggest miss relative to expectations since March 2015. Not only was this a big increase relative to last week, but it also comes on the heels of a relatively big increase in the prior week (+17K). On a combined basis, jobless claims have now risen by 37K over the last two weeks, which is the largest two-week increase in more than two years (April 2014). The next milestone to watch is the 300K level, which hasn’t been breached to the upside since March 2015 (62 weeks
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bespokepremium.com/think-big-blog/jobless-claims-join-the-list-of-52-week-highs/
