Wow:
In the week ending November 10, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 439,000, an increase of 78,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 361,000. The 4-week moving average was 383,750, an increase of 11,750 from the previous week's revised average of 372,000.
This just plain sucks.
The DOL "says" this is all about Sandy. I suspect that's a part of it, but only a part of it.
This is a bad number and the market's reaction was quite subdued, all things considered. I suspect everyone's blowing this off as a "storm related" thing and expectations are that there will be little or no downside that will persist.
I don't think so. I think part of it is Sandy, and the rest of it is not -- the rest is all of the layoffs that were kegged up until after the election, then released in the last week.
If so then the claims numbers will remain elevated coming into the end of the year and it will not be long before the market has an all-on meltdown as it becomes apparent that the Fed's QE games, which they claim are all about employment, are an utter failure and in fact Bernanke has simply been lying about the target of his so-called "programs."