Initial jobless claims for the week of April 27
- jobless claims 230K versus 215K estimate
- Last week 230K unrevised
- 4-week average 212.5 K versus 206K last week
- Continuing claims 1671K vs 1660K estimate
- four-week average 1673.75K versus 1687.75k last week
- The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending April 20 were in Massachusetts (+6,811), California (+4,471), Connecticut (+4,008), New Jersey (+3,096), and Rhode Island (+2,833),
- The largest decreases were in Texas (-2,429), Washington (-1,191), Michigan (-737), Georgia (-593), and Arizona (-518).
The number for jobless claims is up for the 2nd week in a row suddenly. It is around the Easter/Passover holiday. There could be seasonals that need to be flushed out of the system that may be skewing the results. So I would be cautious in interpretting too much from the 2 week spike.
Tomorrow the US employment numbers will be released with expectations for
190K. ADP came in at 275K yesterday although they discounted the results. The ISM Employment number fell sharply to 52.4 from 57.5 in the prior month suggesting some weakness.
