Below is the 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
New Lows...& A Cycle Reminder: Seasonally adjusted jobless claims came in at 274k last week, slightly higher than expectations for 270k. Even with the slight miss, this is a strong print. The rolling 4-week SA figure dropped to 266.3k. This is the lowest rolling SA figure since the week ending April 15th, 2000, which also came in at 266.3k. In the first chart below, the 4/15/00 data is circled in red. It is important to bear in mind, though, that that date also corresponded to the peak in equities two cycles ago.
In the second chart below, indexed claims in energy heavy states improved more than the country as a whole in the week ending May 9th. The spread between the two series fell from 25 to 21.
The Data
Initial jobless claims rose 10k to 274k from 264k WoW, as the prior week's number was unrevised. Meanwhile, the 4-week rolling average of seasonally-adjusted claims fell -5.5k WoW to 266.25k.
The 4-week rolling average of NSA claims, another way of evaluating the data, was -16.5% lower YoY, which is a sequential improvement versus the previous week's YoY change of -14.2%
Joshua Steiner, CFA
Jonathan Casteleyn, CFA, CMT