This morning’s US jobless claims report was bullish on a few durations and bearish on another.
Pick your duration on the chart Andrew Barber and I put together below and you can debate other investors and their durations.
1. Immediate term – bullish (green line)
2. Intermediate term – bullish (green line)
3. Long term –bearish (red line)
The immediate of immediate terms is the weekly registering a 26,000 improvement on a week-over-week basis. This week’s number was 550,000 claims (last week’s was 576,000). On an intermediate term basis, the 550,000 print slid below the 4-week moving average of 570,000. No matter what your duration, those two are (on the margin) bullish.
From a longer term perspective, this is where the Stagflation call remains intact. Unless US jobless claims start to break down through the 500,000 level, sustainably, there is every reason to believe that, at best, whatever recovery the Depressionistas turned Hope Addicts see coming is going to be a jobless one…
Please see Mr. Barber’s longer term TAIL work on the demographic shifts that underpin this multiple duration US Employment debate. The US labor force is getting older and the “young people” have less and less of a probability of earning a paycheck.
KM
Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer
