Weekly Initial Unemployment

Todays Initial Unemployment numbers were worse than expected and the stock market dropped in value quickly there after, only to be pulled back up.  Initial Unemployment numbers or Initial Claims is the number of people filing for unemployment for the first time in the past week.  The forecast was for 448K, but the actual headline number came in at 462K (that is why I always say, look for a trend not an one time improvement).  This number was worse than the prior revised number of 449K (revised from 445K), therefore we lost 13,000 more jobs in the past week.

The delta between actual and revised is staying higher as the new norm is to announce a lower headline number (as that is what everybody looks at) and then revise higher the next week.  Realistically if wee keep with the norm we could expect revisions in the initial claims to be anywhere from 465k to 467K.  It will be interesting to see where we go with the revisions.