This morning’s weekly jobless claims release was the least-toxic we have seen this year.
At 466,000 claims, this was better on both a sequential (week-over-week) and a 4-week moving average basis. In the chart below you can see these points. Last week’s claims were 505,000 and the 4-week moving average (yellow line) is 496,500.
What does it mean? Well it is probably not enough to make the November monthly jobs report much better, but it definitely isn’t something that’s going to make it worse. Manic Depressionistas, be careful. An 11% unemployment rate is not going to be in the cards – not this or next month, at least.
What’s perverse about this (and not being read through in this way by Mr. Macro Market today) is that anything that remotely resembles a less-than-toxic US Employment picture is bad for the stock market, in the immediate term. Why? Well, that’s easy – that would be US Dollar Bullish.
Which leads me to asking myself another question. Is today’s jobless claims report marking the YTD low for the Bombed Out Buck?
He Who Sees No Bubbles at the Fed once claimed to be “data dependent” – this week’s housing and employment data points, combined with last week’s Consumer Price Inflation report are plenty good enough to NOT be holding interest rates at this ridiculous “emergency” level of ZERO percent.
There is an immediate term bubble in Gold and an intermediate term bubble in short term US Treasuries.
Given the recent data, the Fed’s policy of “exceptional and extended” remains unsustainable and unreasonable.
KM
Keith R. McCullough
Chief Executive Officer
