Hickey and Walters (Bespoke) submit: Initial jobless claims rose to 454K in the latest week, which is the highest level since October. The Labor Department attributed some of the increase to delayed filings from inclement weather in prior weeks in four southern states. No matter how you slice it though, the increase is not welcome.
Interestingly, when jobless claims showed a large decline last week, there were some who said that investors should be focusing on the non-seasonally adjusted numbers as they aren't as easily manipulated by the government. At the time, we noted that most of the people using this argument were basically trying to find anything to fit their negative views. Based on this week's data our argument seems to have been validated as non-seasonally adjusted jobless claims fell by 68K and are now down 37% over the last two weeks. Mysteriously though, those same people who were squawking about the non-seasonally adjusted numbers last week haven't uttered a word about them this week. Instead, they are talking about how bad the seasonally adjusted numbers are.
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