Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims

The weekly Initial Unemployment Claims were released a day early this week.  Initial Claims is a measure of the number of person whom filed for unemployment for the first time in the previous week.  The forecasted number was for 451k and the actual headline number came in at 435k.  This is good news for now.

The week to week initial claims is trending down, this could be a seasonal effect as retailers and the like ramp up for the christmas season adding noise to the unemployment figures.  I think we may have to wait until after the Christmas spending season to get a true picture of unemployment.  

The delta in revisions have seem to be pulled in a bit as we enter the Christmas spending season.  Again, may have to wait until after the holidays to see spikes in revisions.