Below is the detailed breakdown of this morning's initial claims data from Joshua Steiner and the Hedgeye Financials team. If you would like to setup a call with Josh or Jonathan or trial their research, please contact
The last few weeks saw claims rising steadily, but that changed in the latest week of data. Claims fell by a momentous 36k on a single week SA basis, bringing them back below 300k. Meanwhile, the rolling data improved WoW by 4k to 302k.
The YoY RoC in NSA rolling claims slowed to 8.3% this week, but this isn't suprising as YoY RoC should be converging towards zero as we get closer to lapping the frictional floor of 300k. All in all, the data this morning is strong and paints a picture of ongoing stability/improvement in the US labor market.
For the last few months we've been calling out the energy sector as an area of acute weakness amid the broader backdrop of strength for labor. The update there this week is that the energy state complex was relatively flat relative to the rest of the country.
The Data
Prior to revision, initial jobless claims fell 31k to 289k from 320k WoW, as the prior week's number was revised up by 5k to 325k.
The headline (unrevised) number shows claims were lower by 36k WoW. Meanwhile, the 4-week rolling average of seasonally-adjusted claims fell -3.75k WoW to 302.25k.
The 4-week rolling average of NSA claims, another way of evaluating the data, was -8.3% lower YoY, which is a sequential deceleration versus the previous week's YoY change of -8.8%
Joshua Steiner, CFA
Jonathan Casteleyn, CFA, CMT