CHART OF THE DAY: Initial Jobless Claims vs. Consumption Growth

The “interesting” offensive will only escalate as it storms the domestic labor beachhead this morning.

This has been well covered and we’ve been detailing the state-level announcements since last week but with Initial Claims set to print between 1.5-4.5 million, the job loss blitz is really all that matters, no matter how ubiquitous the coverage has been:

• Consensus is at 1.5 million, which is probably low.
• Regardless of where it prints exactly, the employment loss will be catastrophic and multiples of anything “since ever”.
• At the median of the estimated range, the number of unemployed would rise by ~60% and push the Unemployment Rate up ~2 percentage points … which, again, would = the most “since ever”.
• As the Chart of the Day illustrates, historically, when claims increases by >100K, consumption growth always slows …. and then slows again in the subsequent quarter(s).  Same for Investment.