U.S. INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS

Claims for the September 15 week are down only 3,000 to a 382,000 level that is above consensus for 373,000. The September 8 week is revised to 385,000 with roughly half of the week’s 18,000 jump due to Isaac. In my opinion people are too focused on week to week changes while on the other hand slowing down in the last 3 year’s downtrend deserves more attention. I’m following the momentum and the 1 year average of the jobless claims unlike the widely reported 4 week average of the data. I believe 4 week average is too volatile. You’ll remember from my earlier updates that I kept on drawing attention to the 380K level which was the 52 week moving average. Last week I also added the timeline for the past and recent QE announcements on the chart. My concern is the slowing down momentum of the last 3 year’s downtrend. And if we don’t see jobless claims falling below 380K in the following weeks, this could be a medium term reversal on the jobless claims. This would eventually push unemployment rate higher. Okay, I understand the argument that QE 3 will take time to have an impact on the unemployment but what about the impact of QE 2. Aren’t we at the same levels of jobless claims since QE 2?